Koca Steamboat Restaurant @ New World Park, Penang.

The market for steamboat buffet is expanding in a very fast pace recently in Penang, with the recent mushrooming of all these steamboat buffet restaurants, Penangites are no longer being limited with choices. My recent visit to Koca Steamboat Restaurant, a newly opened steamboat restaurant that situated at New World Park, was very satisfying indeed. Unlike other steamboat restaurants/outlets, Koca serves steamboat buffet dinner in a way more sophisticated way, where there were air-conditioners in the restaurant, and the way of serving was totally different as well. One needs to order the desired steamboat ingredients from the menu given instead of picking up the food at the kiosk or tables, but the restaurant management was kind enough, for first timer, they will actually bring all of them from the menu to your table. If you wish to order for more, then you might opt for second round. The draw back was the food choices were pretty limited, and everything will be in a fixed portion where you can only order plate by plate. Service was a bit slow and the team was obviously lacking of experience in handling the crowd but they were very polite and helpful to customers. Price for buffet dinner is Rm26+ for adult, while set lunch will be Rm12.90 net. To find Koca Steamboat Restaurant, look for Passion of Kerala (few lots away from Passion of Kerala) and Tarn Thai (opposite Tarn Thai Restaurant). All the food found in Koca Steamboat Restaurant are pork free.

A plate of Deep Fried Dumplings will be given to you first, all the dumplings have maintained the crispiness, and can be very a good finger food to start the scrumptious meal. 

All the ingredients were well-presented and being placed on a tray. The food we had were home made fish balls, home made dumplings, home made fish cake, home made seaweed dumplings, home made chicken balls, crab sticks, prawns, cuttlefish, jellyfish, chicken meats, fish slices etc....Koca gives me a very homely feeling where most of the ingredients were freshly made instead of using the frozen food. I would personally recommend my readers to try their seaweed dumplings, home made fish balls and fish cake, very springy and uniquely flavored.

As for the noodles, we had spinach noodles (green colored noodles), you may opt for white rice as well. The spinach noodles were very good in my opinion, simply boil them in the soup and top with some deep fried garlic and some chopped chilies and soy sauce, simple yet delicious. 

There are only two types of soup bases available in Koca- Tom Yam and Clear soup. The soup bases were reasonably flavored, there were some cabbage and mushrooms being inserted into the soup before the steamboat pot was being brought over to our table. Tom Yam soup was not too shabby, but the clear soup base was very impressive, especially after the sweetness from cabbage being blended into the soup, everything was so down to earth and delectable.

For the sauce, we were given a small plate of home made chili sauce which tasted like sesame seeds mixed with Thai style chili sauce, we requested for some chopped chilies and soy sauce as well. As for the free flow drinks, there were two types of drinks available, namely chrysanthemum tea and chinese tea.

Ratings:

Taste: 8/10 (1-3 bad, 4-7 average, 8-10 good)

Price: 7/10 (1-3 expensive, 4-7 average, 8-10 cheap)

Service: 6.5/10 (1-3 bad, 4-7 average, 8-10 good)

Parking: 7/10 (1-3 bad, 4-7 average, 8-10 good)

Service Charge: Yes, 10%

Government Tax: No

Additional Information:

Address: Lot No. 102-C-1, New World Park, Lorong Swotow, 10050 Georgetown, Penang.

Business Hour: 11am to 3pm; 6pm to 11pm. (Closed on every Monday of March, opens daily from April onwards).

Contact Number: 604- 226 2334

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