Friday night and I was stuck at work until late. I was in no mood to come home and cook. A friend told me about this restaurant just down the road from the Jubilee Hills Chekpost... Coco’s.
I’d been to Shikaar and Tex-Mex (in the same building) a couple of times before and while I haven’t written any reviews on those places here, I did quite enjoy my meals at both places. Since this place is close to where I stay, I decided to try Coco’s out. I dragged a friend (who was to treat me to a nice home cooked meal) to the restaurant.
The one thing that caught my attention was the decor. The restaurant on the terrace and is done up in coir and jute. Quite appealing. The place, however, was stuffy, even at night. The bar reminded me of the pool bar of a resort I’d once stayed at in Goa and it was rather crowded. But the rest of the restaurant was empty and we didn’t have any trouble finding a table. The tables are placed at a distance that almost made me fear that the guy at the next table would pick my fork and start eating. There was another area in the restaurant that seemed a little more spacious. But sadly, we were seated in the cramped zone.
Decor is one thing, ambience is quite another. Not only were the tables quite close to each other, the music playing in the background was only making things worse. As we were being seated, they were playing ’’Feeling hot hot hot’’. I don’t think there could have been a more apt song! The songs that followed were some Arabic numbers and songs from Aqua. I’m beginning to think that the standard CD that they play in Hyderabad is actually good, in stark comparison of course.
The drinks menu is extensive and takes up 3 pages of a 6 page menu. I found the prices a little expensive for the kind of place that it seemed to be. Most cocktails were priced at Rs. 250. The list did have some very exotic cocktails, but we didn’t try any out and stuck to our regular orders.
The choice of vegetarian starters was very limited. My friend and I are both mushroom lovers and so we ordered crumb fried stuffed mushrooms and paneer shashlik for the main course. The paneer shashlik was the only vegetarian main course in the grilled food section and I was told Coco’s is known for its grills and barbeques.
Our drinks came pretty soon. There was no mixing required so I guess they just had to open a can/carton and pour the stuff into a glass. The starters came long after the drinks had disappeared. Neither were the mushrooms fried nor were there crumbs of any kind. The stuff was average at best and I am convinced that the stuffed mushrooms I make at home turn out a lot tastier. We got a handful of mushrooms with some sad potato chips. For the price we were paying, I’d have expected a few more mushrooms or at least chips of a better quality.
I found that it was very difficult to draw the attention of any of the waiters. My friend suggested that I get up and dance. Just as I thought I might have to get up, dance or no dance, someone who looked like the restaurant manager seemed to notice that we were trying to call someone. Over an hour had passed since we placed the order for the main course and the food was nowhere in sight. The gentleman apologized and brought us our food in about ten minutes.
In most restaurants where I’ve had paneer shashlik, the paneer and the vegetables are grilled and then served on a bed of rice. The stuff we got today wasn’t even grilled properly. I get the feeling that they forgot about our order altogether and then tried to bring us our food in a hurry. There was too much paneer and too little rice and the taste was nothing worth writing home about.
We decided to skip the desserts section, as suddenly even drinking milk at home seemed like a better option. This is one place I won’t be visiting. At least not until someone else on MS visits and writes a review tempting enough to get me to change my opinion.