Curry House CoCo Ichibanya - Sawtelle — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Update: 8/5/23 Added more details and general info about CoCo's.

TL:DR Best location for Japanese curry if you're willing to deal with the traffic and parking. The food quality and atmosphere/decor are better than the other locations with the exception of Korea Town, food quality about the same. You have various options for customizing your dish: increase rice amound (in grams), spice levels, add toppings (vegetables, cheese, etc.). Overall, good place to eat for lunch/dinner if you're a curry lover.

The Nitty Gritty Newest location for Coco Ichibanya franchise. The place is more modern compared to the other locations and is roomier; roughly the size of the Torrance location, but the seating arrangements make it feel more spacious (Google the images LOL). Also, don't look at the ceiling... it didn't bother me, but some customers might not like seeing the exposed pipes.

Food quality is equivalent to Korea Town (as in it's good lol) and better than the Torrance and Irvine locations. Additionally, there is a small little kiosk at the entrance to order food to go for your convenience. Personally, I haven't used it since I dined in but it seems handy. On to the specifics...

"Food" You have various curry dishes you can select from the menu but really it's curry + choice of protein (i.e. chicken cutlet, pork cutlet, beef, etc.). Each dish can be customized to suit your tastes. Here are some of the options:

Rice: 200 - 300 g (default 200, I'm also guestimating the range since I dont remember LOL.)

Toppings: Spinach, Cheese, Vegetables (carrots, potatoes, green beans, onions), hard-boild egg, corn, tomatoes, etc. Note: Vegetables + Cheese tends to be the best combo imo, and even meats can serve as toppings (i.e. Karaage [fried chicken]).

Spice: mild, Lv. 1- 10. Spice is difficult to determine as each location can vary on spice and on the person who prepares the dish; typically, Lv.4 - 5 is roughly the heat of a jalapeno. Another example, Lv.10 @ Irvine ≈ Lv.7 @ Sawtelle. If you want the best quality + heat, Sawtelle or Korea Town is your best bet.

Sides: Naan bread, salads (side to me), and fries. Not a whole lot, but personally, garlic naan bread is the winner.

If you're confused or overwhelmed on what to get... Chicken Cutlet Curry, Lv. 3-4 spice or mild (for Cat Tongue's), add cheese. Optional, vegetables. The most common combination I've seen customers getting. Note: The spicier the dish, the thicker and darker the sauce will be (and more expensive LOL).

"Service" Service was great and fast for me (thanks Cedric and the other workers 😁), but likely atypical compared to other restaurants as I never go during peak times. Ain't nobody got time for crowds 'n' bullsh*t... LOL jk.

"Location/Parking" The location (below the SW by CLG apartment complex) can be easily missed if you're not paying attention, but it's located at the cross section of Sawtelle Blvd and La Grange Ave; there's a coffee shop (10 Speed Coffee) next door.

Parking was fine at the time for me Friday, 11:00 AM, but it will be a nightmare during rush hour. There's metered street parking everywhere and two parking structures:

SW resident & retail parking (go down La Grange) and look for the garage sign for the apartment complex; the parking ticket can be validated by the restaurant.

Public Parking Garage (it's a 🧱 building directly across Coco's). Use La Grange to find the entrance. I'm unsure of the cost or validation since I didn't park there.

Closing Thoughts Overall, if you ❤️ Japanese curry, especially Coco Ichibanya, you'll love this spot.

Bonus The fatty status meal (my personal favorite combo).

Pork Cutlet Curry -Regular spice -Lv. 10 spice -Cheese -Vegetables -Hard-boiled egg

Fried Chicken Salad...

I usually don’t order Japanese curry in a restaurant because it’s easy to find those curry blocks in Asian supermarkets and they taste great. However, I don’t fry anything at home because they use too much oil to prep and I try not to eat fried food. So when I found out this Japanese curry place (similar to the Curry House that no longer exists) and offers chicken or pork cutlet, I decided to give it a try!

The first thing I noticed when I walked into the newly opened restaurant was a self-ordering machine. It was only for ordering food to go, but not for dine in…very strange. I thought this was a fast casual semi-self service place, but I guess not. I talked to the waiter and got a spot at the outdoor patio. Any place that has an outdoor patio is always a plus for me because I love to bring my dog with me on the weekends. The waiter was friendly and he came by and checked with us a few times.

The menu was quite confusing. You could customize anything you want on the first page, but the menu also had a bunch of other options on the following pages. The waiter said I could pretty much pick anything I want and mix and match. And to my surprise, they offered to customize the spiciness level. They offered spiciness levels from 1-20 and I asked him what was the equivalent to the Thai spicy food. He said most people order 2 but he said level 4 was very spicy. So my wife and I ordered spiciness level 4. I ordered pork cutlet udon and she ordered chicken cutlet with omelet over rice, and we also added a karaage chicken on the side to share.

The food arrived quickly and it looked appetizing. Both chicken and pork cutlets were cooked to perfection! They had thin crispy batter (not oily) and the meat was juicy. And the curry at spiciness level 4 was spicy! My wife thought it was too spicy for her and it was about as spicy as I could handle. Anything higher than this would make the dish too spicy and I wouldn’t be able to taste anything else. The spiciness blended well with the base curry. The omelet wasn’t the flowy omelet like what I saw on YouTube. It was just a scrambled egg over the rice. The karaage chicken had a sweet and spicy flavor to it, it was similar to Korean chicken flavor.

Overall, I loved this place. Their curry was flavorful and you could customize the spiciness level that I couldn’t replicate at home. Their cutlets were cooked to perfection. I can’t wait to...

We had a group dinner on Friday night at Coco Ichibanya, Sawtelle location in LA. Parking was hard to find. We sat outdoor for group of 8 people. They had heat lamps for outdoor seating. To view their menu, you had to use the QR code provided at the table. We all ordered different dishes and at different spice levels. The meals took a while to come out but they were hot with steams so that’s a plus for us. However, some of our dishes had lots of curry sauce but some had very little curry sauce. So, we ordered extra curry sauces at level 10. After waiting for more than 10 minutes for the extra curry sauce, we had the waiter to check on status. Waiter told us the kitchen placed the priority in getting the new dishes out for customers who were waiting for their meals and lower priority placed for customers who ordered extra sauce. They said that the extra curry sauces had to be cooked separately as new orders. So we had to wait for another 7 minutes and got the extra sauces. We honestly couldn’t tell the differences between spice level 2 or spice level 10, all tasted like the normal average level. What surprised us the most was we saw extra fees for different spice levels on our bill. So, there was a charge for each higher spice level. That’s weird. So overall, curry food was decent and would satisfy the curry craving on a cold, rainy day. But their curry sauce was inconsistent in terms of taste flavor, colors, spice levels and the sauce textures. On the positive note, restaurant has a decent variety of options to have with curry such as chicken, fried cutlets, pork, beef, meatballs, shrimps, clams, dumplings, etc. Also, they have assortments of toppings like corns, eggs, tomato and mushrooms. You can choose to have curry in rice dishes, udon dishes, keema or with naan bread. Note that you can order extra white rice and sauces (extra small curry sauce was around $3.7). They have limited dessert options. We will not be coming back to this restaurants for various reasons as there are lots of other restaurant to explore...