While restaurants catering in Thai cuisine, or variations thereof are now scattered the length and breadth of Taipei City, one of the very first joints to bring the spicy tang of Thai food to denizens of the nation's capital recently added even more mouthwatering grub to its already extensive menu.
Part of the Pam Restaurant Group, a restaurant chain that boasts branches in Japan, China, Malaysia, Australia and Hawaii, the Coca has been serving up spicy dishes in Taipei for the past six years. It has become famous for a dish that is very different from the standard Thai fare found at other Southeast Asian restaurants.
Known as Suki Thai and originally the brainchild of Patama Phanphensophan -- a Thai national born in Guangdong Province -- there are now so many variations of the dish available that it requires its own menu.
PHOTO: GAVIN PHIPPS, TAIPEI TIMES
"There are now so many Thai restaurants in Taipei that if you want to stand out you need to offer diners more than the standard fare. And the Suki Thai is such a dish," said Pam Sun (
Based on the Chinese hot pot solely in the sense that diners get to choose their own ingredients and add them to the steaming broth at their leisure, the flavor of Suki Thai is far removed from that of the popular local winter dish.
Offering the choice of a flavorsome chicken or radish-based soup, diners can choose to fill their hot pot with a multitude of fresh ingredients depending on how much they wish to spend.
The all-you-eat option of Suki Thai ranges in price from NT$370 to NT$660. For those who wish to spend that little extra cash, live crab, beef and assorted seafood hot pots are also available from between NT$680 and NT$780. And for that special occasion, a lobster Suki Thai large enough to feed 10 is also on the menu and costs NT$4,800.
While Suki Thai has become the restaurant's trademark dish, the chefs at Coca, all of who hail from sunny Siam, have also concocted several new and exciting flavors of curry, the most original and tasty of which is the Massaman beef curry (NT$320). A mixture of Thai and Indonesian curries with the addition of extra, secret spices, the dish is a minefield of contrasting and tangy flavors.
Not that lovers of simple Thai food should feel left out while dining at Coca. Plenty of Thai favorites are also available and include dishes such as papaya salad (NT$180), steamed sea bass in lime and garlic sauce (NT$460), spicy spare ribs (280), tom yum soup (NT$220) and various red and green curries ranging in price from NT$280 to NT$420.
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