Take Me Down to Coco, yo!

Lame title, but very cool that this is post #50! Woohoo!

Now, we’re back to the good stuff, local fare from here in Elmhurst, Queens. I went to Coco awhile back, but really didn’t know what to order My familiarity with South Asian cuisine consisted of making pad thai for a friend in college (word up Leila!), having no clue what I was doing, in a dorm kitchen with flickering lights. Good times.

I asked The Fisherman if we could go again, but he insisted that not all the food was good, like their noodles in soup was horrible. Pan fried stuff was good, in his opinion. I recall their chicken satay was good, so between our limited memories we decided to give it a go.

We sit and look through the menu

And ponder their special drinks, although I know my heart belongs to Thai iced tea. I’d like to try an avocado shake, or coco-pandan, mmmm.

I got my Thai iced tea, so tasty. Sharp, bitter strong tea with the smooth creaminess of the condensed and evaporated milk, so good!

Now, to order. We go for the satay chicken and the roti telur (roti canai with egg) for appetizers, and then shrimp thai green curry (after trying red and green curries in my own dishes, I think I like red more, hold tight for more on how I do Thai!) and chow kueh teow for mains.

The satay was as delicious as I remember it, moist juicy dark meat with a nice marinade, and INCREDIBLE peanut sauce. I wanted that on EVERYTHING! I am playing with using peanut and peanut butter in savory dishes, you will soon find out. This really could be main dish over rice, and in some places it is.

I never had the roti but it was quite delicious. Stretchy chewy bread? I’m there! And with egg it’s not a major starch bomb. This was served with another delicious chicken curry sauce. Saucilicious!! Two for two on the apps!!

For the main dishes, this curry has nice heat, not too crazy, and the veggies added a nice crunch and contrast. The sauce dished over rice was wonderful.

I actually really loved The Fisherman’s choice of chow kueh teow. Nice wok hei, which is hard to find but beloved when found, nice chewy rice noodles, tasty calamari, shrimp, sprouts (love that light crunch) and some egg.  I will definitely request this again.

The funny thing about where we live in Elmhurst is, we live around all these eateries, yet we often pass them right by. For me, Coco was an example of this. There are many, many others that we just pass because they’re part of the scenery for us. But I’ve decided that, when posed with “Hmmm, what should we eat?” that we take advantage of all the great local cuisine we have, that we usually don’t even realize.

Will they all be great? Of course not. But the important thing is it’s there, and we gave it a try (that and we can just roll home).

Anyway, next up, a quick blip on my adventures with Mexican conchas! Until then, mangia!