Superwrap
Hurrying along Yorkville, I feel like Alice in wonderland tracking the white rabbit to see which hole he’s going to vanish into. Only a sharp eye can spot a new place in the subterranean restaurant strip that zig zags along the street, and so it is that I almost fall into Koko! Suddenly there it is, an exquisite glass box located at the bottom of a flight of steps.
The room is waves of palest green, tables polished like mirrors and made from an ancient Peterborough barn, an atmosphere as calm as the eye of a storm, a little bar, a communal table. It’s lunchtime and Koko! has only just opened so I sit almost alone as I meditate the menu - I keep spotting familiar items with a surprising twist – this is the mother of all fusions, Korean-Japanese snacker style. Playwright, entrepreneur Sang Kim, a founder of Blowfish and owner of KI Modern Japanese has teamed up with chef Shin Aoyama, who started out at Tojo in Vancouver, to put together a crisp and flirty menu that is oceans away from the trad sushi and singeing barbecue and crisp bim bap of Bloor West. Like a little danger? Try the torched butter fish with garlic stem and tamari lemon roll $13 and forget all about its potential exlax effect as you sink your teeth into the smooth lush meat. I play it safe but deliciously so with lean yellow fin tuna and spicy orange kimchee mayo. Goes down nicely with a glass of Henri Bourgeois Sancerre $11.50. (Koko! has a small modestly priced list) A great audition but the real show is to come because Koko! isn’t the place if you want to be alone. It begs to share. Immediately I plan to return with others – for Bossam, Korean wraps.
Sunday evening is more like it – a good buzz. A tempting platter passes us by – Temaki for two, assorted sashimi, shrimp tempura, a gothic tangle of soft shell crab…..$50. But we’re opting for meat. First, we eat torched Tunisian sea bream sashimi $14 which fans out like flattened pansies on the plate, their edges dipped in bitter yuzu ponzu. A spoonful of sweetly brackish Hokkaido scallop topped with salmon roe in a little balsamic jus. Then a smoking clay pot arrives on a board: inside there are fragrant tea-smoked scallops, shrimps and sea bream on a bed of hot sea salt and tea leaves with just enough of a piquant sauce for dipping $26.
Isn’t this a little piss elegant for so earthy a food as Korean, we wonder. Then the Bossam arrives. We’ve ordered for two – $50 – reckoning there will be plenty for three. Only just! On the spacious platter lies slow roasted pork belly, spicy chicken, and Korean pork bbq. Alongside is a a big bowl of Boston lettuce leaves the size of a small elephant’s ears, boiled white cabbage leaves, sliced Spanish onions, and then the little bowls, chili mayo, sweet chili paste, salted baby shrimp. Don’t hold back. Just pile em all into a leaf and bite. Not so fast says Sang Kim. He recommends lots of sides ($2.50 each) as well. So into the sandwich goes steamed rice, little wheels of sweetly marinated lotus roots, cubes of daikon radish and mild seaweed. This is now an uncontrollably large sandwich, the kind that leaves dribbles running down the chin, and we cry for more lettuce leaves. We put our elbows on the elegant table to prop up our wilting arms. We vote our favourites. The gold medal to the soft and yielding bbq, no, to the rich crisp pork belly. We give a bronze to the chicken which is just a little dry. Best wrapping material? Everyone’s different but the translucency of the cabbage is especially congenial, and we all note how the lotus root isn’t just a pretty face but a perky chip of a veg.
At some point we finish our modest Alsation Pinot Blanc $40 and as we eat green tea panna cotta as dark as spinach, with a dollop of cream and berry puree, Sang pours us a glass of tawny port – more fusion - from a bar that sports the now de rigueur alcoholic exotica, warm vanilla and spice martinis and the like, housemade soju- the vodka like Korean spirit.
** and 1/2 Koko! Share Bar 81 Yorkville 416-850 6135.Dinner for two, food plus tax $120 No wheelchair access
