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With our sweet tooth and our affinity for a sour flavor profile, curry never really made it to the favorites list.
But new player Coco Ichibanya is set to turn that around.
Since it opened its first Metro Manila location in Estancia Mall in Pasig last March, Coco Ichibanya has been on a full charm offensive. With so much room for customization, we’d like to make an intelligent guess and say, it’s trying to attract the millennial market.
We’re tempted to warn to indecisive types as that may intimidate you, but it would be unfair to this Japanese franchise. The first thing you’ll notice upon opening its thick menu are the recommended set meals that you can choose from. And besides, the wait staff is very helpful and knowledgeable about what the restaurant is offering.
And that is, curry meals that are fun, filling, and delicious. First, you select which viand — or topping, in Coco Ichibanya’s parlance — you want to eat. There are 27 to choose from and they range from strange to delightful. We mean: pork cutlets (safe), cheeseburger (fun), sausage and eggplant (interesting), Kimchi (seriously?!), pari-pari chicken (what’s that?), croquette (on curry?) and so on.
Second, you determine how much rice you wanna eat. Third, you check the level of spiciness you can handle. And finally, you decide if you still want all the bells and whistles — add dessert and a drink.
In the two times we’re eaten at Coco Ichibanya, we chose a recommended meal set, and because the viands were all too intriguing, we also ordered an extra topping. In both times, we chose the standard spiciness level (there are eight levels to choose from from mild to crazy hot) as well as the smallest possible rice size. And in both times, we wished we tried something spicier, and ordered the standard rice size.
We were lured by the seeming health halo of the Pari-Pari Chicken meal set (PHP310), and then just because we can, we paired that with a side order of Cream Croquette (PHP100). Pari-Pari is chicken fillet that’s been breaded and then fried, and then doused in Coco Ichibanya’s thick curry sauce.
A pleasant surprise: It remained crispy despite being drowned by the sauce. And the white meat of the chicken? Very, very tender.
The Creamed Croquette, while a delightful little thing, proved to be an usual choice to go with curry. An order comes in two pieces. Its crab flavors were drowned out by the curry, while its creamy texture, proved a little too thick when paired with the curry.
Here, we realized that curry isn’t so complex after all. In fact, it’s actually rather simple. Our recipe: Select a basic topping that can act as the base for the curry. The Pari-Pari experience was so good, and there was still so much options to try that several weeks later, we returned.
This time, we were armed with a few notes from our first visit: we’re going to try the Sausage and Eggplant meal set (PHP390), which came highly recommended by the wait staff. They told us that the dried pickles, available on each table as a condiment, will sweeten the curry. And because on our first visit, we were made curious by the next table that ordered the Cheeseburger (PHP160), we ordered that as well as a side on our return.
This time around, all our orders hit the spot. We don’t know if it was the fun to be had alternating having eating a piece of sausage and then following it up with a piece of eggplant, or the fact that both had very simple flavor profiles, but they both went so well with the curry. We can almost imagine this as a lunch staple of Japanese kids. Add the dried pickles to a spoonful and we were turned into happy campers.
The Cheeseburger was flat-out good. Again, simple flavors paired with curry. But, it proved a tad too hefty as a side — we know, what were we thinking?
We are considering ordering it again for our next Coco Ichibanya meal — can you see there’s a habit already forming here? Thankfully Coco Ichibanya is slowly spreading its wings across the city. It recently opened in Rockwell a little over a month ago, and its Greenhills location is set to open this month.
Coco Ichibanya, G/F Estancia Mall, Capitol Commons, Pasig. +63 2 6961649.10am-11pm
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