Second Bite: Coconut House

It has been a while since I last visited Quezon Memorial Circle. But I still remember the two times I dropped by this place known to be a date spot by some locals. The park was crowded with Pokemon Go players running around trying to catch Charizard, Squirtle, Pikachu and pretty much every single one spawning here and there. And one of the hottest spots to get the rare Pokemons was Coconut House. The place was like a gold mine. Since it was really humid during my last visit, I decided to buy one ice drop to cool me down. And it was refreshing! I then promised myself that I'll swing by again to try its food.

Hello, Coconut House!

It was one rainy Monday when I visited but the servers bright smiles sure changed my gloomy mood.

The place was simple and very straightforward. There's a counter in front with a menu board on top, a few shelves with coconut-based products, and several tables and chairs.

For this visit, I sampled Coco Okoy (PHP95), Laing Pizza (PHP85), Gatadobo (PHP295), Pork Sinigang sa Buko (PHP365), Seafood Kalabasa at Malunggay (PHP295) and an off the menu Chicken Coconut Curry.

I first tried the Coco Okoy and it was pretty good. It was your usual fried and crunchy vegetable patty. I didn't really get to taste the coconut flavor as it was overpowered by the other ingredients, more so when dipped in vinegar.

I loved the Seafood Kalabasa at Malunggay. I might be a bit biased here though as I love anything with squash. 

The Gatadobo is one of Coconut House's bestsellers and it did not disappoint. The organic chicken and pork were so tender and packed with flavor all thanks to the delicious blend of coconut cream, soy sauce, vinegar, herbs and spices. It leaves a lovely sweet, salty and sour taste which would make you want more.

One of the dishes that impressed me was the Pork Sinigang sa Buko. This was something new to me. I never thought that sinigang and coconut would work together but it did. By using coconut water, the broth had that distinct taste of coconut. And surprisingly, it was not overpowered by the tamarind flavor. The pork chunks were also very tender making every bite blissful.

I was not very fond of the Laing Pizza as the crust was a bit off. It was more of cheese bread than Laing Pizza. The laing taste was faint and left me underwhelmed.

The off the menu Chicken Curry was cooked in coconut milk and was your usual ginataang manok. It was pretty good too and I loved eating it with the veggies it went with as it added more dimension to the dish.

Service though needs a bit of improvement. My hot calamansi took over 30 minutes to prepare and I had to follow it up twice.

Overall, it was a lovely visit and I can't wait to bring my gata loving mom here.

Coconut House is located at D-4 Quezon Memorial Circle, Elliptical Road, Diliman, Quezon City.