Koto Brewing Co. — Restaurant in Twin Falls

When traveling, sometimes the roulette of last-minute internet searches leads to dud destinations and other times destinations that remind you that people are great. Our visit to Koto Brewing Company in the Old Town area of Twin Falls was squarely in the latter category. We pulled into Twin Falls last evening, a quick stop on our 18-day cross-country road trip, and (as we always do) did a quick search for nearby breweries that serve food. Of the handful of search results, Koto looked best so we rolled the dice and headed over. We landed in what is the historic Old Town area of Twin Falls that throws off an immediate (good) vibe driving in, even in the dark. Walking in on a Thursday night, we were floored by how large and full the space was, immediately realizing that there was a rousing (and clearly very popular) game of Bingo taking place. Even with the very busy environment, we were met by the friendly face of Josie, our server, who gave us the full rundown of the beer and food menu and, when bingo wrapped up and she had the bandwidth, a thorough orientation of the establishment, clearly picking up on our curiosity.

Beer and food: First, some context. We're from the Chicago-area and travel a ton. We love visiting a spectrum of establishments from the biggest dives to the hoitest (is that a word?). The BF™ is an IPA guy and has visited hundreds of breweries and described Koto as standout. He did a flight of five of their house IPAs which he described all as well-balanced and perfectly hopped. If he weren't suffering from a cracked rib and exhaustion from being on the road for 7 hours prior, he would have tried the full menu of their house beers. Josie recommended the Bauman's Loganberry cider for me which was so delicious (with a cool bottle to boot), we left with six more. On beer/beverages alone, we'd be regulars if we lived in town. For food, I had the spicy shrimp tacos which were seasoned and grilled to perfection. The addition of the pickled Fresnos with the chipotle ranch put them over the top in deliciousness. Though admittedly lame, the BF was jonesing for wings so ordered up some with their house chipotle BBQ sauce. Both the wings and the presentation were ... extraordinary. (If you've been in enough bars and ordered enough wings, you'll know there's a lot of room for breaking the mold.) So, beer and dining both get high marks from us!

Environment/establishment: This place has a SOUL. And it's intentional. The owners have intentionally preserved and celebrated the past of the building and simultaneously given it purpose and life to ensure it's around for future generations to learn about and appreciate. Koto is actually the surname of the original building owners, Japanese immigrants who, in 1920, built the iconic building that included hotel rooms on the second floor. There's a rich history that the current owners and staff not only pay homage to with photos and their story on the walls but also are obviously indebted to, so eagerly share their origins and history with new visitors. Layer on an obvious love and appreciation for local history, as evidenced by their salvaging and re-use of local materials for the interior decor, and you have one special place in Koto.

Make sure t look up to admire the arresting art by resident artists (ask your servers) and support their artistry by inquiring, making a purchase, or sharing on your social media. I was obsessed by the featured work of artist Robert Ransom and hope to get my hands on something to feature in our home.

All in all, this is an extraordinary place we highly recommend. We loved it so much we left with six ciders, a t-shirt, two of their locally made bottled sauces, and a beer glass. Thank you to Josie for the great and informative conversation (as well as the added hook up of the beard balm). Your pride screams and...

Long story short, food is ok but the long wait to get said food isn't worth it. If you want the details keep reading.

I really want to like Koto and to see them succeed so I'd love to see improvement, but I also feel the need to warn others about the experience they can expect.

We've been to Koto around 10 times in the year+ they've been open. Latest visit marks at least 3 times in a row that one or more orders at our table were wrong. The orders always read correctly on the check, so my suspicion is the issue resides in the kitchen. At this point we expect service to be fairly slow because it has been since they opened, but last night our total time in the door to getting our check was over 2 hours. No visit from a manager, no explanation as to the long wait, not great customer service.

Here is a rough timeline of events.

6:30pm - Seated promptly 6:40 - Drink orders taken 6:50 - Some drinks delivered over the next 10min in shifts, but not drinks for the two children at the table. Only because we requested to do so, the server took our appetizer and meal orders now 7:15 - Children's drinks finally arrive with their food, wife asks for drink refill 7:40 - Wife finally gets drink refill, appetizer arrives 7:45 - Tables who arrived after we did begin getting their food 8:00 - We get our food, but wife's order was incorrect 8:05 - Wife's correct order comes out, which originally took 1hr 10min to get wrong, but now takes 5min to get right... 8:25 - Check comes 8:35 - Server returns with receipts and we leave

Several of our dishes were cold, others warm. We chose not to complain because no one was interested in the prospect of waiting another hour+ and we just wanted to leave. Taste of food was fine, beers are pretty good too. But at this point there are too many other options in Twin Falls for Koto not to fix the issues and give better service. I may come back for a beer at the bar once in awhile to try new brews, but eating here isn't worth it. Really hope...

Finally had an opportunity to try Koto and we loved it. Great wide open space nicely remodeled, street side garage style doors open up to let the afternoon breeze through. Plenty of seating and room between tables in these social distancing days. We love good beer and we both enjoyed Koto's Porter so much we decided to return to try their other selections so we could enjoy a second Porter. It has a deep rich color and flavor to match. What I liked about Koto's Porter is there is no heavy after taste, just really smooth clean flavor. !. Since we already decided to return we sampled their appetizers rather than diving into entrees. We had the Korean BBQ wings, Korean brussel sprouts and the Roasted Red Pepper Hummus. We both enjoyed the Korean BBQ sauce. I especially liked the wings. They were cooked just right, and the sticky gooey sauce has a pleasant rich smokey, sweet with just a little kick flavor. This same or similar sauce is applied to brussel sprouts and I believe baked. I really liked these. It's a nice meatless alternative with tons of flavor. The humus was nice and light, not oily, the flavor profile is also nice and light, in my opinion maybe too light. I'd prefer a more bold flavor. Of course this could have been because I was sampling the hummus in between bites of Korean BBQ sauced wings and brussel sprouts! All of the ingredients were excellent. Vegetables fresh and crisp, bread was delicious and if not baked on site fooled me. Everything tasted and looked to have been made from scratch. Service was very good. Always someone roaming around checking on everyone without being clingy. We really enjoyed the atmosphere, music, food and especially the Porter. Definitely...