Set Lunch @ Coco Tei, Jalan Delima, Kuala Lumpur

I never got the chance to get acquainted with Hajime.

Coco.Tei, the new Hajime, reopened in May 2011 much to the delight of many of its loyal customers. I too was excited to visit this Japanese restaurant, a favorite of many in the past.

Housed in a rather big white building, Coco.Tei takes up the ground floor and is tastefully done up with lots of stone decor on the outside wall and lots of wood on the inside. Tatami seating was offered to us but we declined since we had two young kids with us and a table would be more suitable.

Tatami seating

I love the bar area, especially the wood logs used under the island. Beautiful pattern and textures.

Another intricate wood piece on the wall

We were offered both the a la carte menu and set lunch menu to choose from. For anyone who likes a good deal, you will be pleased to know that Coco.Tei offers their set lunch daily, including weekends. Yes, you read right. The set lunch menu was actually pretty impressive, with almost 30 choices of mains to choose from. Prices range from RM30+ to RM36+ depending on what you choose.

In comparison with the a la carte, the set lunch looked like a great deal hence we decided to try this first. You get a choice of 2 mains per set, hence we went for the sashimi moriawase, prawn tempura, unagi yanakawa, and gindara teriyaki.

The sashimi moriawase (assorted raw fish) consisted of 2 slices each of salmon, tuna and hamachi. The sashimi was fresh and had a firm flesh. The only thing I thought was weird was that they used a garnish which looked like colored plastic, I thought Japanese restaurant usually use edible garnishes in their food?

The gindara teriyaki (grilled cod fish) was excellent, firm flesh with a nice caramelised finish albeit the portion being a little small.

I did not like the unagi yanakawa (grilled eel with omelette). The omelette was cooked in a stew with some root vegetables and I thought it tasted downright weird and way too watery for my liking. I went for this because it was something different from the usual unagi kabayaki I have. Not good value as well, sinc! e this w as in Category C (more expensive item) but only came with 4-5 slices of unagi. I'll just stick with my unagi kabayaki next time.

The prawn tempura was pretty good and non-oily, though again, the portions were a little small.

All sets are served with chawanmushi, rice, miso soup and pickles. We did enjoy the chawanmushi as it was silky smooth and laden with ingredients.

For an additional RM4+, you can get a scoop of ice-cream per set. Considering the price per scoop from the a la carte (RM10-12 per scoop), this was really reasonable.

If there was one thing we would return to Coco.Tei for, it would be their black sesame ice-cream. It was definitely rich and had a slight nutty flavour to it, definitely awesome. We also tried the wasabi ice cream which I wasn't too keen on as the wasabi flavour was too overpowering for me.

Kawaii Japanese dolls

Giant crabs

There is ample parking in the compound, just hand over your parking ticket to the waiting staff to enjoy complimentary parking.

Verdict: The service was warm and courteous, the food was above average and reasonably priced. Perhaps the a la carte menu items would fare much better than the set lunch.

Opening times: 11.45am-2pm (Lunch) and 6pm-10pm (Dinner). !