KooKooToo, Filton Avenue

KooKooToo
518 Filton Avenue, Bristol, BS7 0QE
https://www.facebook.com/Kookootoo

We had noticed KooKooToo opening in our neighbourhood and decided to try it out on a quiet Wednesday night. The first thing you notice about the place is the décor, it's lush, all pastel colours; pinks, greens, terracottas with fabulous furniture and big wooden tables and benches. Warm and inviting.

We took a seat over one side of the restaurant and a funny, jolly little man who was the waiter or the owner (not too sure) came over with an array of menus. Four to be precise! We perused the menu for some time and debated what we fancied. A duck dish with walnuts and pomegranate and a chicken and lamb kebab took our fancy along with a bottle of red wine.

When the jolly waiter came back we went to place our order, but then found out both dishes we fancied were either off the menu or modified. They weren't the only ones; about 4 dishes were either off the menu or modified. We ordered a starter of hummous and we asked if we could have a mixed halluomi and chicken kebab instead of the chicken and lamb and after some to-ing and fro-ing to the kitchen it was agreed that was ok. We were also told that the duck dish was now chicken instead so we went with that. We also ordered some red wine and tap water.

Its worth pointing out it took us over 20 minutes in a deserted restaurant to get this far in the ordering process. The waiter did tell us later that he was working on his own as was the person in the kitchen and that they didn't expect it to be busy (whilst we were there 4 other tables arrived).

The wine minus the tap water arrived along with a little amuse bouche which was really tasty and got us quite excited about what was to come. The starter than arrived which was THE biggest portion of hummous and some flat bread. The ratio of hummous to bread meant you were having to devour a lot of hummous with each mouthful, a smaller portion would have been better. The hummous was nice though; very garlicky and the flat bread was yummy.

We then had quite a long wait for the next course and I amused myself watching the flustered waiter trying to keep up with serving the other tables.

The main course eventually arrived and the kebab plate had a smattering of mushrooms all over it, which meant I couldn't eat it. There was no mention of mushrooms on the menu and I don't think I've ever seen a kebab with them in. I double checked the other dish had no mushrooms in which the waiter confirmed but there was no offer to re-make the other plate sans mushrooms.

*cue plate swapping*

The chicken, walnut and pomegranate dish I ate was ok; it was not suited to chicken at all, lamb would have been a far superior choice and had it come with lamb I think I would be raving about it. It was quite a dull dish with not much taste and the chicken did nothing to improve it. Husband had the kebab which was very salty and quite hard going towards the end. I would have said you could share the kebab between two quite sufficiently. The halluomi was very squeaky; it would have done with more cooking. The water finally arrived after a gentle prod to the waiter which was needed after the food.

Overall, poor service, multiple menus and salty food let KooKooToo down for us. The décor and vibe of the place is great and we wish it had impressed on all counts for us to make it a regular haunt seeing as it's in our neighbourhood and we like to support local businesses.