Kokoro Croydon — Restaurant in London

Like wasabi, but the hot food is a lot nicer. Sushi selection and quality could be a little better, but overall very good.

Edit 1 year on: 4 - 3 stars. The food is fine, but could definitely be improved. Don't go here expecting Japanese food, it's more Asian fusion.

There's a distinct lack of vegetables: some (hot) vegetable sides would be great (courgette roasted with chilli, spring beans fried with a little soy, some sauteed pak choi or other greens... maybe not traditional, but much appreciated). That goes for the main dishes too: katsu curry, but the curry is missing chunks of carrot, onion and potato; salmon teryaki with practically raw onion and the very rare sliver of carrot.

Other dishes could do with some TLC. The chicken teryaki is much more a soy stew, and makes for a sad meal. Get the chicken properly fried and caramelised with soy, and serve over rice with some cabbage and spring onion instead.

Finally, a menu rotation wouldn't go amiss. Start introducing some more popular donburi dishes: chicken oyakodon (although risky with raw egg for a lunch establishment, maybe go safe and cook in the broth!), gyudon would both be welcomed when autumn...

I recently ordered spicy chicken (spicy chicken with mixed vegetables), plain rice and seaweed salad (heavy sigh and shake of the head)...

The chicken and rice came in a nice large size tub so I was happy as I was very hungry. It did not look how I had expected as I could see mainly sauce, chicken and carrot pieces.

The taste was horrendous and it really does take much for me to say this, but it truly was. It did not feel like I purchased something from a restaurant to put it blunt. It was literally bits of chicken leg/thigh flesh dumped in a redundant VERY PEPPERY sauce. I can handle spicy food but this food lack flavour COMPLETELY. Plus the texture of the chicken alongside the flavour was like it had been boiled in plain water for 10 minutes. It had a slimy, undercooked texture. The truth is it was inedible and was promptly thrown away. I wasted over £15. I still do not understand why someone had the audacity to serve this to me. It was close to closing time and still in my opinion does not validate selling such a terrible dish! Very disappointing and will NEVER eat from there again.

By the way the seaweed salad dish was...

The food was nice and staff friendly however I ordered a mixed hot meal to share. I was distracted as my baby needed feeding and only after my son take bite of the food did I realise we was served a single meal. At the same time the server realised she brought the wrong order to us and brought the correct order over. Initially she said my son could carry on eating the wrong dish then she came back after discussing with someone else and took the dish from him. This isn’t my concern that she took the food from him but I’ve had a issue in Tooting branch where someone tried to serve me a meal that had already been prepped and was waiting at the till. So I would make sure when you order they are serving fresh food in front of you because it does make me question the practices of the staff that is the second branch visited and I’ve had similar experiences in both where I question the quality...