Coco Asian Bistro

Banawe is another area thriving with homegrown food places. We were looking for Wok with Liu...a chinese resto I have heard some people say good things about. Unfortunately, I couldn't recall where it is exaclty located so we just traversed the length of Banawe St.. Upon crossing Del Monte....we were thinking of goin back and just probably dine at Old China Town Kopi Tiam....but we stumbled upon this complex, where Starbucks Banawe stands, a small chinese dimsum nook and......

COCO ASIAN BISTRO

We ordered the Lumpiang Ubod Php 125.00

What a funky surprise! I have never been served Lumpiang Ubod this way. Pretyy purple pouches of crepes...lightly ube flavored...filled with the ubod filling...neatly tied with a pandan leaf and served with a thick peanut sauce.

Lookie up close.....

...and lookie inside....

They were really pretty...but its aesthetic thrill unfortunately did not meet up to it's taste. The ubod filling was kinda scrimped in order to make these pretty packages...leading to an unbalance crepe to filling ratio....in short...too much wrapping too little ubod =( Makes you tend to leave parts of the pretty purple wrapping on your plate (if you get what I mean). The peanut sauce was too thick and lacked falvor too. It was generally ok...edible not entirely likeable. I would never trade the Aling Lucing's Lumpiang Ubod from Kamuning with this. FYI: Aling Lucing's Lumpiang Ubod is sold at K-1st Street in Kamuning...they are also very popular for their empanaditas and pancit palabok!

Moving on..

We ordered the COCO LOCO SURPRISE

Mixed seafod simmered in coconut cream, served in a taro basket, on the menu it was described. As it was laid on the table....the dish looked very enticing and intriguing! Again...just another pretty face so to say. The coconut cream kinda had a starchy-thickened feel and taste as opposed to a smooth and rich tasting sauce we expected. There were about 1-2 prawn pieces...2 slices of fish fillet and 2 scallops in the cream ladened basket....priced at Php 265.00...I think we deserved a bit more. The taro basket was a disappointment still...we were hoping to be able to nibble on the fried taro basket...sort of like enjoy them like taro chips...but they were tough and not crisp at all =( Maybe it wasn't meant to be eaten anyway? Oh well....we had this with garlic rice...but we were served plain rice by mistake...we didn't bother to complain. The rice was Php 35.00 a bowl....a small bowl...garlic at Php 40.00. Please don't get me wrong...the dishes were edible...not totally appalling just not that appealing ;P Perhaps if you would dine here...just veer away from what we had and maybe you'll have a better experiece =)

The crispy pata on the neighboring table did look nice =).

I guess this place is well off forgotten....by us at least.