COFU Chinatown

I went for the ONE Night ONLY omakase. There was a DJ playing music. A 10-course meal with limited guests. I was so delighted to try a vegan omakase for the first time. :D Among my favourites: Hassun plate - a very flavourful mushroom tartar Parsley cream cheese. They changed the topping to make it gluten-free. Replacing the cracker with celery. Oshi sushi - the konjac has a texture very similar to raw fish. Nigiri - I was amazed by the fragrant poached apple and peach over the sushi rice and with a touch of wasabi. Unicorn - I was thinking of a real unicorn. It's corn with cream to recreate uni. I loved Tororika, made with red bell pepper. The pepper was sweet and melt in the mouth. King oyster mushroom has a texture of seafood. They replaced the original sauce with the special sauce to make it gluten-free. Vegan eel was my favourite, using eggplant. The top was crispy with the softness of the eggplant. A pleasant combination of texture. Pasta Course - spaghetti squash was used instead of pasta and the tomato sauce is so rich and intense in tomato flavour. The béchamel sauce was tasty and creamy as well. Main Highlight - a deconstructed beet risotto where I mixed the elements to create the risotto. Beautiful in colour and in flavour. It was a wonderful experience!

The concept of Cofu Chinatown, perhaps, gave us overly high expectations of what to expect, as well as that the server informed us that they had an event right before we arrived, so those might have contributed. I made the reservation for à la carte, and we ordered the vegan quiche, the pressed sushi, and a bento. The vegan quiche gave us the expectation that it would be creamier or richer, but it was more of a yam and beet gratin. We somewhat expected more complex textures and flavours, as it was more dull than what was expected of a quiche. The pressed sushi 🍣 was well executed. The vegan salmon had strong umami and the eggplant was very well done. Complex flavours, complimented with varying textures, on a purple rice that resembles sushi rice with not too overwhelming texture. Would order again. The disappointing part was the bento - we got the vegan chicken bento, which had many types of vinegar-based pickles, almost overwhelming. The purple one and the daikon, as well as the cooked daikon all tasted too similar, perhaps overwhelmingly vinegar. The other underwhelming part was the vegan chicken - it tasted simply like a vegan fish cake with no complexity in texture or flavour. We were expecting something with more of a meaty texture, perhaps a take on tempeh or those gluten-based ones that other Asian cuisines use, and provide much better texture and flavour. The drinks were quite good, many plum based, and complemented the nice dim ambiance. Overall, perhaps we expected that, at this price point, that the experience would be more supreme and luxurious. The servers were not too familiar with the menus, and some items were not available. They also mentioned that their POS system had issues with tipping, and told us to write the tip % on the receipt for them to input, which we found odd. Perhaps they had issues with customers tipping too little since they deduct the $50 reservation deposit from the bill, which makes tipping more mathematically challenging, but that experience, as well as that they don’t take cash (they said they don’t have change) made the experience seem bumpy at every step. Also, the chairs are very loud. A bit more refinement in the entire experience could make this a better experience. But from this visit, it makes me hesitant to revisit or consider the omakase, which we thought about trying.