Our lovely friend Claire was over from Hong Kong for a couple of days last week so a few of us went out for drinks then dinner in honour of her, at the time, forthcoming birthday (this week, but when she had returned to HK).
We had booked dinner at Kopapa so I had fully intended to post a review but in all honesty a) a lot of cocktails had been knocked back in Detroit pre-dinner (Singapore Slings in my case, in keeping with the early colonial-Asia theme) and b) there were 5 of us which I didn't think would make the whole "small plates" deal at Kopapa easily divisible... I opted out therefore and had a soup and starter to myself while the others went wild on the small plates. Which meant that while I had a good idea of what I ate, and how I felt about it, I can't really comment on the rest...
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| The Mixed Platter |
The Mixed Platter consisted of, so the menu tells me, grilled chorizo, Guindilla chillies, marinated olives, Cabra del Tietar (a soft goat's cheese), Marcona almonds, Hansen & Lydersen (a local smokehouse based in Stoke Newington) smoked salmon & a sourdough breadstick. Obviously as I'd opted out of the group thing I could only stare but it did look rather nice.
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| Sweet & Sour Coconut Broth, tempura soft shell crab, rice noodles, coriander & chilli |
This was my starter effectively - the soft shell crab was very nice and it nearly worked as a whole.. the problem I found was that while the tamarind contributing to the sourness was quite pronounced I just felt it was rather too sweet. A shame as it was on the verge of being excellent.
I'm not sure what this is in all honesty (above), I think it might be octupus. In which case I think it may have had a white balsamic, yuzu, caper & shallot dressing. It looks quite nice but at this point I felt quite justified in opting out of the sharing plates.. can you imagine that between 5 people?!
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| Shichimi-crusted baked tofu with shiitake, carrot, hijiki& miso mustard dressing |
This looked pretty good it has to be said. I've got a thing for pea shoots and micro leaves at the moment though so maybe that was it.
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| Goats curd, beluga lentils, samphire & grilled baby gem with pomegranate dressing & hazelnuts |
This was my salad "main course" and was absolutely delicious. All the elements worked incredibly well with each other - the mild yet sharp creaminess of the curd, toasty nuttiness of the hazelnuts, crisp saltiness of the samphire, sweet tartness of the pomegranate dressing. Yum... really good.
And this is why you should never say to a group of friends that you won't be sharing food with them and leave the table. There were lots of photos of this ilk...
Lots of other dishes were ordered and eaten but in concentrating on eating my own I failed to take photos of the others (and did I mention the cocktails?). It was a good evening but I can't honestly say how good or otherwise the rest of the food was really.
Certainly my meal was a tale of two halves. The soup was fairly so-so (the crab was good, the broth not so great) but the salad was excellent. I honestly can't call it in all so I think that the proof will be on a return weekend brunch visit which I hear is very good indeed.
Kopapa Café and Restaurant, 32-34 Monmouth Street, Seven Dials, Covent Garden,
London WC2H 9HA
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