Coca Restaurant (2007-01-22)
The neon mud crab sign is what lured me and KL to Coca Restaurant, a Thai eatery. I am not particularly into Thai food, but I am a huge fan of mud crabs. I didn't know one could get mud crabs in Tokyo, so I had to see if they were the real thing at Coca.
The restaurant is basically one long rectangle with tables against
the walls on both sides and a large counter in the center of the
room. There's also a small back room with only three tables and
that's where we were seated. Soon after we took our seats, one of
the heavy wooden and glass frames decorating the wall just above our
table fell and landed on our table with a big bang but luckily didn't
break or knock things over. I was quite startled though.
We saw the majority of diners eating Hot Pot, but after looking at
the ridiculously overpriced cost of the hot pot dishes, we opted for
the a la carte menu. We ordered five items and they came in this order:
1. Boiled Beef Salad. There were several pieces of sliced beef
and a scant amount of cucumber, red onion, celery and herbs. The
beef was bland but the dressing was strong to spice the dish up.
2. Thai Chicken BBQ Style. The chicken maryland was deep fried
and then coated with thick curry-ish spices. It also came with a
peanut sauce which was good although the chicken was tasty enough on
its own. The dish should've been called fried chicken instead of
BBQ, but I ain't complaining. Hey, I love both style of chicken
and deep fried meat is automatically awesome.
3. Mud Crab in Hot & Spicy Sauce. This is the biggest
disappointment of the night. It almost felt like a rip-off
ordering this dish. There were only one small claw, two small leg
sections and two teensy pieces of chopped body in the entire
dish. The rest of the stuff on the plate was some sliced
mushrooms and herbs. And that's not the worst part. The
biggest letdown was the quality of the meat. Mud crab meat is
supposed to be plump, firm and sweet. Of the little bit of meat I
did my best to scrape out from the shell, it was limp, soggy and mushy,
and devoid of the fresh sweet taste of mud crabbiness. This dish
was a huge scam.
4. Chilled Chicken With Bean Paste Sauce. Steamed chicken thigh
meat pieces was served cold with a tangy sauce on the side. The
chicken was bland on its own, hence the sauce accompaniment. This
dish was okay, nothing to write home about.
5. Fried Rice With Crab Meat. This one saved the night.
Although there wasn't a whole lot of crab meat in the dish, the rice
was greaseless, had a smoky taste from high heat frying and each grain
seperating beautifully. I'd return just for this fried rice.
Coca Restaurant 2-1-8 Yurakucho Under the JR railway track Tel: 3507-5489
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