A Date at Coca

About a month ago I agreed to sample the humongous buffet spread that is the Weekend Special Buffet at Coca Restaurant.

The extensive menu that is the Weekend Special Buffet. Click to go to my flickr to see it in large size.

For the initiated, the Coca chain of restaurants is a made-in-Thailand now available in several shopping centres, hugely associated with steamboat, but actually has a whole lot of other goodies chain of Thai-styled steamboat restaurant. We went to the one (that's currently under renovation) at Bangsar Shopping Centre (near my office-kan), a day before Valentine's Day.

On our arrival, the restaurant marketing manager came up to us and congratulated us on our engagement – fuiyoh the whole world knows we're engaged hah, can't cancel the wedding anymore, can we? , and then we were informed that instead of the Valentine's Day set they were going to have us try out their signature menu.

So this was the one. RM78++ for adults on weekends only, a (super super) wide spread of dishes that ranged from the steamboat eat all you can (really really eat all you can) to the cooked dishes.

Now this was where Eric and I were a little surprised, truth be told. All along I had assumed that Coca had only their steamboat (the last time I ate at the same restaurant was about 8 years ago before meeting Eric, and I recalled little about Coca serving cooked Thai dishes only. So Eric decided immediately, 'OK, errr… we will skip the steamboat set, my fiancee has tried that one before anyway, but I'm more interested to see what you can cook up.'

The restaurant decided to recommend several dishes (in total we had about 10 mains and anothre 3 desserts. I'm going to show you some of the more noteworthy ones so that you'll remember to order these if you choose to go there…

Thai-styled Shark's Fin soup. I must say I was very impressed to see them serving real fin — sorry to the animal activists here. The taste was rather unusual for those prefering the Chinese-styled drenched in XO liquor type, and it was also very different from the ones they serve in Bangkok's Chinatown. Coca-styled – I'll call this boleh-lah.

Scallops (Typhoon styled). According to the menu you can order the scallops cooked in any of these ways: Tamarind, Golden Fragant, Typhoon Style, Coca Special Sauce, Stir Fried with Basil Leaves. We took the different sounding one. Now if you're ever going to try this (and do order the scallops – they're HUGE), don't order Typhoon style. Get the Stir Fried with Basil Leaves. The broccoli tasted great, but the scallops did not manage to absorb the sauce.

Breaded Soft Shell Crab – so sinful. But so yummy. MUST MUST MUST TRY (if you love soft shell crab – Eric thought it was too rich for him so I finished both pieces. ^_^

Always order a Thai salad at a Thai restaurant. We took my favourite – the Mango Salad. Chunky peanuts and whole cashewnuts were a good sign and this dish delivered. You can order as many salads as you want, so hehe, order a few lah if you go…

Eric saw the words 'Fried Morning Glory' and we had a little argument over what they meant. "I'm telling you they really take the flowers and fry lah."

"No, they're Kangkung… in Thailand they call it morning glory nia…" I said.

"OK we order and see who wins."

NEVER FIGHT WITH A WOMAN IN A RESTAURANT. She always wins.

This was very very close to the way they fry it in Bangkok. I like!

The creme de la creme. The steam fillet of cod on a bed of oh-so-sumptious Steamed in Thai Style sauce (up in Kelantan we would call this the Khengsom Steam). It's a pity the buffet only allows a one-time-order only for Cod and Crabs. Otherwise we would have ordered this over, and over, and over again. THIS ONE DISH ALONE is worth the entire trip to Coca (even if you don't take the Weekend Buffet, ORDER THE COD! The manager told us that they fly in an entire cod on a weekly basis so you can be guaranteed of freshness. And the sauce is very very spicy yah (so children and people who can't take chillies, you've been warned).

The desserts were so so and the Biasa type you can find in all Thai Restaurants. Go for the Thai styled Cendol, cause the cempedak bits in them makes the taste very different from the Malaysian styled one…

Of course there are some not-so-sedap ones on the list. The stranger dishes which you might wanna miss if you go…:

Stuffed prawns, baked crabs (the fillings were the same, and tasted like fish paste! The black pepper giant prawns (a little wtf lah, the sauce tasted right out of a bottle!) and the pandan chicken (a little too oily). Wait. On second thought, the pandan chicken was ok…

***

OK. The Verdict: for RM78++ and the choices you get (the extensive list of cooked dishes, AND the steamboat set), it really is value for money. Its a pity that the normal human being can't take in too much (or rather, Eric and I aren't big eaters) so even though we only order the cooked dishes, we were stuffed by the end of it. Cooking time is rather slow (we had to wait around 25 minutes for the first dish to arrive), but the quality of the food is good. I'd prefer to take the steamboat though, after all, IT IS COCA, and you HAVE to order the steamboat when you're there – so if you ever order this buffet set, don't skip the steamboat. I would recommend ordering the following sets if I were you…

Steamboat buffet – take this one…
Cod Fish – Order the steamed in thai sauce set
Soft Shell Crabs – Order two plates if you love soft shell crabs and you don't really care about cholesterol
Morning Glory – Very nice
Mango Salad – I would order a whole plate for myself, if you love Phad Thai then do the same!

If I were you I'd also call the restaurant to reserve a table AND order the dishes of my liking first. That'll give them some time to cook!

Coca Restaurant outlets are at:

Open Hours :
[Weekdays] 11am – 10.30pm
[Weekends] 11am – 11pm