Koi — Restaurant in City of Niagara Falls

(A very generous 4 stars - read on) I joined a friend here for Asian food and they were very gracious in seating us early, as we arrived thirty minutes sooner than our reservation. Having lived in various points in the Pacific Rim, I must say they have a very creative take on fusion and many delights. The ambience was wonderful - curved tall sweeping walls of river rock punctuated with some very nice minimal design touches. While I generally really dislike banquettes, theirs was so vast and afforded so much room between tables that it was quite comfortable - and beautiful. We started with shrimp wonton soup. The broth was the nectar of the gods - as good as any homemade broth and the wontons were fresh made and thin, enveloping an almost too large whole shrimp.. Delicious despite the baby bok choy being inedible. Also as a starter, we ordered the spring rolls whose outer layers were microscopically thin and just perfectly crisp. We ordered four entrees and dined family style. The Vietnamese Shaking Beef dish was an epiphany. Im not a huge fan of filet mignon but they diced it smaller as one would for a beef stew and somehow managed to sear all six sides of each cube! This was accompanied by a masterful almost impossibly small brunoise of vegetable and other flavors that just sang. I would go there for that alone (OK and maybe the soup) We also had the Scallops and Mushrooms. The sauce ingredients listed included fish sauce and sounded wonderful but the hand in that department was tragically heavy, taking away all the sweetness (and lack of fishiness) that I love best about scallops. Our meal was rounded out by a respectable Buddha Delight vegetable medley and chicken fried rice. (and almost not worth mentioning but curious, the fortune cookies were stale and extra stupid) So why the grudging 4 stars?? After the main courses arrived, I found 2 of them to be just a tad underseasoned for my taste and neither of us could get our waitress or anyone else's attention for so long that the food was cooling off quite a bit. FINALLY I saw a gentleman (Maitre d'?) and flailed my arms because I wasn't going to let one more staff enter and never even bother to scan the room. He asked almost incredulously if I meant him and I said ANYBODY - I really need some soy sauce and a salt shaker. He acknowledged and a few minutes later don't I see him tell a different staff member I need this.....and then i wait and a few more minutes after that, they go and tell my actual server I need these!! So this clown made me go through three rungs of the chain of command for something that would have taken him thirty seconds! This is very piss-offing in a place that cost $240...

Food poisoning 2 people out of party of 7!!! One of them is a child. Stay away from this place. We came to Seneca hotel for some instate vacation time with family and friends. Made reservation for 7pm, came to the restaurant. The food looked much better in the pictures, than in real life. A lot of dip fried menu choices which we are not crazy about. Half way through meal my daughter who is 10 pulled out a hair from her dish. We called the waiter, pointed it out. My daughter didn’t eat anything else that evening. We went back to the room and 20 minutes after she felt nauseous and started throwing up. It continued till middle of the night, going back and forth to the bathroom, and sleeping with the plastic bag. In the morning comes out same thing was happening to our friend adult who also was having a dinner with us. My daughter had diarrhea for the whole day after. Our vacation time was ruined, because the whole night and day were taken out of our plans. The worst is also how the restaurant manager and the hotel handled it. We were looking to speak with the manager for the whole two days we were there - no one was available. We called after out stay and managers Vincent or Angela never got back to us. I am writing this review a month later and I still didn’t hear from any of them. Someone from hotel’s risk manager called and very sarcastically asked questions for the “report” stating that I will be updated and contacted. Since then never heard back. Horrible place with horrible people who have no pity...

The service was friendly and the food had great flavor. Here’s where things went wrong. All of the food, I say again, ALL OF THE FOOD were not cooked long enough. The fried shrimp wontons were still raw. The wonton skins were uncooked and still in dough form when you bit into them. We sent them back. The soup, lomein, general tso tofu, and bok choy stir fry were not hot when they arrived at the table. They were warm, borderline room temp at best. The green tea that i ordered before the meal was HOTTER than the food. By the time i was on my third bite, the food had no warmth left to it. So this leads me to two explanations. One, the food is cooked and then left under a heat lamp for too long because the servers can’t bring it to the table fast enough. Or two, the more likely explanation is the cooks are literally cooking the food in 30-45 seconds. That’s not enough time for the food to heat up evenly. No matter how hot the wok is. Woks get very hot so people may think that food is cooked faster, but they’re wrong. The outside becomes hot faster while the center of the food needs more time heating up. The food would’ve been perfect if everything had been properly cooked. Slow it down, there is no rush. It’s a reservation only type restaurant. Not a fast food joint. Hope this reaches management as this restaurant has great potential...