koi restaurant, ending our new years celebration with a dinner

as i sit here munching on red vines and watching my guilty pleasure, "real housewives of atlanta" (don't judge me, it makes me feel normal) i'm recapping last nights dinner at the trendy koi restaurant - west hollywood. koi is a japanese, sushi fusion style restaurant. they serve everything from sushi, salads, cold asian dishes, and hearty entrees. 
this dinner was for us to catch up on NYE festivities and for me it was to meet new lifelong friends. there was a lot going on for all of us this past weekend and we all couldn't spend it together. so last night we got to sip over cocktails, have a bite to eat, and chat. great conversation, great new friends buuuuuuuuuuut the food and service was another story. i felt we definitely paid for the ambience, location and nothing else. between the 10 of us the bill was roughly $750 including tax and tip. my biggest pet peeve about going to an upscale restaurant is that they don't do seat positions. having the food runner call out your dishes and interrupting your conversation especially for a group of ten is annoying. another peeve is bringing out the main courses at different times. restaurants, such as koi, like to use the excuse, "since there are so many kitchens here. food will be coming out at different times. so please don't get upset if you don't see your food. it's coming, we promise!" so sure of enough i rolled my eyes, because obviously koi and their staff has a huge communication problem.  i truly think it's complete bullshit that cooks and chefs can't give each other a time frame of when food is ready. especially when most of the food they serve are sushi, appetizers and salads. needless to say all of my biggest pet peeves happened at koi. 
now, i know i should have ordered a fish dish or even sushi at koi but instead i order the peppered filet mignion with shishito mashed potatoes. it was sunday and i don't order fish on a sunday. (why? that's another post) anyway, i ordered it medium and it came out med well. the filet, which looked more like at flat iron rather than a filet minion, was sliced 1/4" thick. it was laid on top of a well reduced peppered sauce and surprisingly delicious. the dish came with shishito flavored mashed potatoes and frankly the dish would have been fine without it. the mashed potatoes were over whipped and flat. shishito is a pepper from japan. they roast, blend, and strain then fold into the mash. very similar to horseradish mashed potatoes or wasbi mashed potatoes. side note - this was when the food runner started bringing out dishes a few at a time and started calling them out. one of the girls ordered the famous koi dragon roll and literally waited 20 mins after we all got our hot dishes. i would understand if the restaurant was busy and the sushi chef had a lot of orders, but another girl ordered a different type of roll and she got hers before all of ours. not only that, but the sushi station was next to our table and both chefs we're standing around chit chatting. no sushi was being made! another no-no, we had to ask the food runner for drink refills and to find our server many times. that to me was unacceptable because the restaurant was coming to a bare. 

so between bad service and overcooked averaged food, i didn't have much of an appetite. i wish i would have taken pictures of the dishes but i simply forgot and was not planning on writing a review. but sitting here today, i just figure my readers would want to know my opinion on any restaurants i have dined. again, i had a fantastic night with friends, my year has already started off amazingly but i just wish the amount of money we spent for dinner was worth it. 

here is to an already amazing year :) xoxo