A little while ago I received an invitation from Andrea from Restaurant Coca for a food review session. It was quite a while since the last time I had Coca (for steamboat) and remember the experience to be a rather good one. Anyhow, Suan, FA, Ringo, Tim, and I went to the session on a particular Tuesday night last month and gorged ourselves silly.
the five free loaders at Coca and our juices
Most of you might have been associating Restaurant Coca with their higher end steamboat dinners, while this is still true, our review session was to try on their newer Thai inspired dishes instead.
Most of us ordered juices to start the meal, and I just had to get the pretty curious Roselle drink the moment I saw it on the menu. For the uninitiated, it is a type of Hibiscus (ala our national flower) with the drink that is sweet in a different way. The Roselle tasted fresh and very juicy to the bite too, I love it. Unfortunately Andrea said they imported this particular ingredient from overseas and they aren’t available at the stores.. bummer.
pandan chicken, stuffed prawns, deep fried calamari
Next came three appetizer dishes: pandan chicken, stuffed prawns, and deep fried calamari.
Out of the three items, the stuffed prawns were a bit disappointing, but perhaps maybe it was the presentation. They look so awesome but at the end the taste was just average, a case of visual over hype I suppose. Deep fried calamari was one of Tim’s favorite appetizer, the fresh squid and the taste of batter was a good combination. As for me, I have to go with the pandan chicken, it was probably the best I’ve had, better than the “paper wrapped chicken” at balakong and even the same dish at De Chiengmai. The chicken very succulent and the marinate was just perfect.
seafood tomyam, steamed fish with thai sauce, tofu with scallops, kailan
After the pretty heavy appetizers, we had seven main dishes to go with rice. Steamed siakap with Thai sauce was very good, the sour and salty soup mixes well with the fish and garnish. Fried kailan provided a fresher taste, while the clay pot tofu carried a very strong sweetness from scallops, very nice.
However, I find the seafood tomyam a little too “lemak” (though milk is used in substitute of coconut milk/santan) and didn’t enjoy it much. To me, tomyam should be sour and spicy instead, so I find the experience a little strange. The green chicken curry, though lemak as well, tasted pretty good as that was how it should be.
deep fried mantao and chili crabs, butter prawns
The big ticket items were the butter prawns and chili crab. The buttery batter used is slightly different from usual, with more Thai inspired spices and thus carries a stronger taste that I find very nice. I had extra since Tim, being a noob, doesn’t eat prawns. 
The deep fried mantao went really well with the sauce from chili crab dish. As for the crab itself, while not very impressive in size, was fresh and tasted pretty good.
the desserts: mango with glutinous rice, red ruby, sago in coconut milk
As our stomach started to expand like a hot air balloon and already having quite a bit of leftovers due to the impossible amount of food served. Andrea decided that the meal wouldn’t be complete without trying their desserts.
We had red ruby, sago in coconut milk, mango with glutinous rice, and ice kacang. I only tried a few spoonful from each of them. They were quite good, but to be honest, I was already over stuffed to the point of losing my sense of taste.
It was a pretty good dinner, and I do think that most of their Thai dishes were pretty good (especially the pandan chicken). While the price is a little on the high side, Coca offers a very nice ambiance with pretty good quality ingredients.
Address:
Subang Parade,
Subang Jaya, Selangor
GPS: 3.082109,101.585416
Tel: 03-5632 8766
