I had gone to Coco Bongo restaurant and tried their much hyped Biriyani about which I had mixed feelings about as mentioned in my previous post regarding that visit (Click here for it)… I went back to the restaurant Coco Bongo after being recommended by a friend of mine to try other options especially their burgers… So, this post is about that visit which happened almost a couple of weeks ago by now…
The place looked incredibly clean and spotless as before and I reached there pretty much at the same time as before… A change was the menu card which looked like its new unlike before… So, this time I went for their Sweet Corn Chicken Soup to start and their Bongo Chicken Burger… Having had skipped breakfast and also finding out from the waiter that their burger is not too big, I also decided to try the item in their menu that caught my eye called the Chicken Singapore Noodles…
So, the first to arrive was the Sweetcorn Chicken Soup… I had the same soup in my previous visit and had written about it in the post about that visit… This soup seemed to be an exact replica of the soup I got in that previous visit and it was nice as before…
Once I was done with the soup, they brought in the Chicken Singapore Noodles… The Singapore Noodles unlike its name suggests is something that originated as a take out option in Cantonese restaurants in Hongkong which got adapted into the Chinese-American cuisine from which it basically spread across the world… The original version is basically stir fried rice noodles with vegetables, egg, meat (Chicken, Beef and/or Pork) and shrimp seasoned with Soy, Five-Spice Powder and a bit of Curry Powder for a spicy kick… Based on how it got adapted into various cuisines, there are quite a few versions of it with different kinds of noodles and seasonings and the most popular one is the American version which is a sweet and mildly spiced version, which still uses the curry powder, but in addition to Soy, they use the Worcestershire sauce and the sweetness comes from the use of brown sugar in it and some versions also add in some fruits, especially the pineapple (canned) to it as well… This is also the version thats quite popular in India and its something I like to have sometimes…
However, this version that I got here had me shocked to be completely honest… Let me first mention was what good about this… The Chicken and egg was cooked well… The noodles were also cooked perfectly and the vegetables felt to be fresh and crunchy… However, the problem was the flavour profile… I know, as I said above that Singapore Noodles does use our curry powder a bit, but its never allowed to dominate so much that the whole tastes of only our garam masala… Thats what happened here… Even though it looks like a noodle dish, the flavours made it seem like a biriyani that I do seriously wonder if this was made using the same spice mix and marinade that they use for their Chicken Biriyani… It was not entirely that, I could detect the presence of Soy, Tomato Ketchup and Green Chilly sauce as well in it making the whole thing taste quite weird for me especially because the “masala” did taste like it was not cooked enough ie, taste of raw spices… The Egg on top was fine, seasoned just like any other omelette using salt and pepper, but the noodles ended up being something I didn’t like at all and couldn’t eat much of it… I asked the waiter if this is how they usually serve this and he said yes… I really hope this gets corrected very soon…
After the noodles, I got served the Bongo Chicken Burger… The Bongo Chicken Burger as per what the waiter mentioned is their special Chicken Burger, which is basically a Barbecued Chicken Steak burger with extra cheese and Fried Egg, served with Potato Chips… What I got was served with Potato Wedges (I am guessing that it is what he meant by chips) and the Burger consisted of Lettuce, the Chicken Steak, Cheese, Fried Egg and Mayo…
In short, if the Chicken Steak was removed, this would’ve been an awesome Egg Sandwich.. Everything except the Chicken was absolutely perfect with the incredibly soft and fluffy bun with a really good Mayo sauce, perfectly cooked egg and Cheese and fresh lettuce… The potato wedges were crispy on the outside but incredibly soft and creamy inside… However, the Chicken Steak turned out to be completely dry and tough inside and burnt on the outside that when I bit into it with some struggle, all I could taste was of Charcoal… To top that off, it was very very salty… So, after the noodles and now this, I felt I had enough and so didn’t bother to call the waiter on this one… Instead I discarded the Chicken and instead, pushed in the Potato wedges inside to take its place and that as a sandwich felt awesome to have… Anybody owning a burger joint should seriously consider this idea of putting in Potato wedges with fried egg in a sandwich… 🙂
So, altogether a disappointing lunch I had at this place… I can only hope that whatever issues they have right now gets sorted out soon and they serve great food…
