CôBa

How I love Coba! The butter chicken wings, the prawn toast, the drinks, on a cold night… truly beautiful. A warm and relaxed atmosphere with bar staff stirring up a storm with delicious cocktails. Menu is limited but yum. A little far from King Cross but a quick ride on the bus gets you away from all the hustle and bustle.
Can’t wait to come again!

I can’t rave enough about this place. Great service, great food — I’ve been twice and always leave on a full and happy tummy. Don’t miss the duck ramen as a main but most importantly — don’t skip the starters! The summer rolls are divine but the lamb cutlets are my absolute fav. The sauces make the whole experience unique. Don’t forget to book ahead!

It’s rare that I disagree with other Unilocalers so epically but I did not like my lunch here today!
Coba has been on my radar for some time, since I work near King’s Cross and really like Vietnamese food. The lunch menu is different than the dinner one, and has bahn mi. I’m a huge fan of bahn mi and I figured I’d be back to try the phở one evening, so I went for the BBQ chicken bahn mi (£6.50).
A small blip when I ordered a Coke, and she asked if I wanted ice. I declined, and the glass bottle of Coke came with a drinking glass — with a huge wedge of lemon. Why ask if I want ice and not lemon? I never want lemon in my Coke, but it’s not a deal breaker. What was though was that the Coke was served at room temperature. So I had to get ice, and them my drink went all flat and watery because it wasn’t cold to begin with.
Bearing in mind there were precisely 2 other diners in the restaurant (I came at about 1.30pm on a Wednesday), I still had to wait about 10 minutes for my sandwich. But when it arrived it was a thing of beauty — huge, attractively presented. Winner… or so I thought.
The chicken was cold — like purposefully so — and comprised of cut up pieces of thigh meat, which is never my favourite, but it was also covered with the fatty skin. Cold, flabby chicken skin is obviously not an appetising thing. Luckily for me, the chicken portion was really quite stingy.
The bread was hard in that way bahn mi bread always is. The cucumber was really thick and pretty much all I could taste. The big slices of chili provided no heat whatsoever, and while I could see there was some sort of pâté, I couldn’t taste it. The only thing I enjoyed was the shredded carrots. It was only after I realised they never asked what spice level I wanted (like every other bahn mi I’ve had in London), nor did I remember to order it without the dreaded coriander — but there was so little it didn’t matter anyway.
I only ate a third, was never asked if everything was okay. Coupled with the fact that it’s really in the middle of nowhere, it’s definitely not a lunch destination I’ll be returning to.

Fantastic food at this place! The staff are very friendly and it just has a really lovely atmosphere. Been here a couple of times now and both experiences have been great.
The summer rolls are the stand out of the starters, very fresh tasting with a thick peanut sauce. I ordered the Phở both times which had a lovely warm spice to it, reminds you of Christmas. My girlfriend had the pork salad which was also very tasty.
Beer was a freedom lager which was sharp and crisp and complemented the food well. All for a very reasonable price, would recommend to anyone.

I would give Coba 4.5 stars, but am rounding down due to their miss on my favourite Vietnamese staple of phở.
I absolutely loved their starters. We ordered the prawn toasts and today’s special of lamb BBQ. Both dishes were mouth-​eagerly good, and we finished wanting more.
Then came the slight disappointment — my beef phở. The broth and vegetables were fresh enough, but their choice of flat, fat rice noodles was a poor one, especially when they were served stuck together and rather undercooked. Hence, no matter how good they were otherwise, I could not bring myself to give it five stars. Time for them to reconsider how to get their basic right.
We ordered Coba Tea for cocktail, and it was great. Sweet and refreshing, just as the menu suggested
Ambience was fabulous. The right balance of simplicity and moderness with appropriate level of lighting and a touch of hipster-​ness.
Last but not least, service was also solid; our waitress was kind and great with recommendations. Even all the other servers were very prompt in topping up our water and tending to our small requests here and there.

Not a great joint for vegetarians. Had some large spring rolls with a dip for starters (but those spring rolls with the weird membrane wrapped round them (‘summer rolls’) instead of the baked/​fried batter). That was nice. Then had the vegetarian ramen option for mains. The broth was fairly bland. Disappointing, as, for me, the broth is the most important part. I know all ramen is essentially a big bowl of supernoodles in salty water, but for the money I paid here, I expected a bit more. And the water wasn’t even that salty!

Beautiful food, i am in love with this place and is probably one of my top 5 restaurants in london. Go check it out — a little bit of a mission to get there but you will be wowed.

Wowser. At the risk of sounding like a total suck-​up, this place is all of the awesomeness that all the Unilocalers that recommended this place promised. I finally got to try it out last night (with a few others already on their repeat visits!).
After a pretty dreary stretch of road north from Kings Cross (5min on the 390 bus), CoBa is a cheery beacon of warmth in the distance. It has an unfussy interior of unfinished wood, leather banquettes lining the walls and low-​hanging lamps, with the frontage cleverly made of large glass windows to give it a spacious and inviting look. It’s kind of a shame they’re not in a location with more people walking past, but I suppose the ‘local neighbourhood’ feel is quite cute too.
There’s a bar counter at the back complete with token bearded hipster barman shaking up cocktails. I highly recommend these — I started with The Secret which was a frothy pretty gin affair, but it was surpassed by a superb Old Fashioned, nice and strong (with the added fun of trying not to touch your nose to the giant ice ball in the centre when sipping). I was FOMO’d into getting a Whisky Sour at the end which was tasty and served with a cinnamon stick and dried apple slice. The barman readily made a couple of off-​menu Negronis for us too, so don’t be afraid to ask.
The food menu is compact but covers the bases. There are 4 starters and if you’re lucky, a lamb cutlet special. We ordered one of each (well actually, we ordered 4 of them when someone remembered how tasty the 5^th one was last time and ordered that too). I suggest you do the same and get involved with chopsticks and fingers — despite expecting an inevitable weak link, I enjoyed every single one. Luckily for our group of 4, everything (ex the cutlets) came in 4 servings. The prawn toast was like none I’d seen before, actually more of a big fat prawn dumpling, with a deliciously spicy sauce to dunk in. The bite of lamb I tried was unbelievably tender, and the fried chicken in a delicious coating. My favourites unexpectedly were the summer rolls — generously stuffed yes, but more for being served with the most unbelievably tasty peanutty sauce that I was tempted to ask for a second dipping bowl. We even had the toddlers at the neighbouring table leaning over to take a look.
For mains, I wasn’t in a soupy mood so opted for the spicy lemongrass bbq pork noodle salad, which arrived looking beautifully fresh and you mix up yourself. The only let-​down for me was the actual pork, which was a little fattier and thus chewier than I’d hoped, though the flavours in the dish were delicious. The repeat visitors each got something different to last time, and the consensus was that the soups were better — so next time I know to order the phở! As a bonus, Vicky L’s noodle issues also sounded like they’re on the way to being solved. We finished with a coconut pannacotta (and another round of drinks) to share, more out of curiosity than needing any more food by this point. It was nice and light, though didn’t particularly taste of much.
The pork would probably take it down to 4.5 stars but I’m rounding up for the quality of everything else we had, not to mention the warm hospitality we got from the welcoming Vietnamese-​born chef and our smiley Canadian waitress. Have I been swayed by all the other glowing reviews? Probably — but having tasted it myself, I can tell you this is good, simple, msg-​less vietnamese at its tastiest and worth the expedition to the slightly unusual location (and über job home). Now I’m off to daydream about that peanut dipping sauce again…

I ended up here with a few fellow Unilocalers to try out the noodles — essentially a long awaited reunion of the Ramen Club!
Vicky, Linzi, and Grant have largely covered off all the important bits, so I’ll just add my endorsement to the awesomeness that is Coba. Everything I tried, I enjoyed and I rarely say that about any place be it a hole in the wall or a 3 michelin starred resto.
The starters were epic with the lamb cutlet winning on taste, the chicken on crispy skin and juicy meat, and the summer rolls on freshness and sheer size.
My duck ramen for a main was full of rich flavour with tender duck meat cooked to perfection. I started off thinking I wasn’t hungry enough for a full bowl but I polished that off PDQ and started drooling at the salads some of my dining companions had ordered.
The cocktails are a winner too. The old fashioned hit all the right spots and the the other ones I tried were just as tasty. This was definitely a great option to reconvene the Ramen Club and is solidly in my «must eat» recommendation list!

I’ve had Coba on my list since I heard it was run by the same people who did the Table for Ten supperclub (that I never managed to make it to). So a few of us decided to go check it out, and see if it was good. We had a table for 8, but we had a no-​show, so luckily another friendly face showed up for a bit to hang out and drink!
We started with cocktails. I chose from the right side (as the left side sounded too sweet). I’m pretty sure I tried all four, and they were all really lovely. An Asian twist on a classic cocktail. Or four classic cocktails as the case may be.
It’s not a very extensive menu, so we wanted to try several things. My partner and split three small plates (because we couldn’t decide). The prawn toast was absolutely amazing. It’s not what you would expect, and the mayo was amazing. The special of lamb cutlets were great as well. Very nicely cooked. I especially liked the spring rolls. Full of meat. Yum!
For mains we split a couple of the noodle bowls. Both were really fresh and light and flavorful, but not quite as good as the mains. Next time I might try the phở, or I might just go for all the small plates.
Because yes, there will be a next time. It was a lovely dining experience and environment!

Wow. Coba serves up some really sexual sauces. If there was ever a restaurant where the highlight are the sauces (amongst everything else), this is it.
Josy, Andrew and I shared the perfectly fried chicken with the gorgeous crabby/​spicy mayo, some pretty summer rolls (very skillfully wrapped) with a super morish peanuty sauce and the amazingly grilled Lamb cutlet with some sort of nuoc cham. Words can’t actually describe how good our starters were. (Note– the sauces go with the dishes they came with. These people know what they’re doing. Variation from the instructions will just make you because you’ve just ruined a perfectly paired bite).
For mains I had the beef phở which came with both bouncy meatballs and beef. And amazing spicy sauce– the kind that isn’t just spicy but actually had something to add to the meal– and no it wasn’t because it came with hoisin sauce too. I normally prefer the beef in my phở to be served pretty raw (as it cooks in the soup so quickly) but this wasn’t so chewy so I was ok with it. Soup base was fantastic. Only thing was my rice noodles weren’t «waved» when cooked so was stuck together (which jarred with my asian instincts). But overall, it was a fantastic bowl of noodle– everything else apart from the noodles in that bowl was great (actually I did feel sad about the noodles, but I think that was to other people a *tiny* mistake and the fact that I still think it was brill is a testament to me how great the rest of the bowl was). I must say though, I was most envious of people having noodle salads (yes Andrew, I know what I said about having buns in winter and I totally take it back. Again.)
This was washed down with a couple of the cocktails– some shaken gin/​hibiscus concoction with chocolate on top– being a chocoholic, I loved it and thought the chocolate really pulled the sweet/​sour/​hint of bitterness together.
Didn’t go for the cake as sadly, I’m one of the few people on earth who hates red velvet.
Is it far from Kings cross? Yeah… it’s like a good 20 minutes walk.
Is it worth the walk? Definitely, and if you’re a bit lazy, the 390 will take you door to door from the station in 5 minutes.
Is it worth going back? Heck yeah!
Is this making me sad thinking about going to Cay Tre next week for Xmas dinner? What do you think? I’ll be crying quietly into my food while trying desperately to get so drunk I can hallucinate about eating here instead.

Had such an amazing time at Coba, fantastic food and the most charming staff.
I hadn’t been here before but a bunch of us came to try out their menu on the recommendation of another Unilocaler. We were greeted by the very friendly staff and sat down to make some tough choices. The menu is not that big but we were assured that this meant they did everything beautifully.
The rest of the group started with some amazing cocktails and I got to try the old fashioned, which was excellent, especially in a restaurant and not a bar setting. Of course, the credit for this probably goes to the expert shaking up the cocktails behind the bar.
My boyfriend and I shared the fried butter chicken and the lamb cutlets. My only regret was that we decided to share and I couldn’t enjoy all that deliciousness for myself. The lamb was beautifully cooked and tender, I could have eaten three plates of it. Even though both dishes were spiced, all I tasted were the wonderful flavours and not any unpleasant ‘heat’. I have such a low spicy food tolerance and often all you get from spicy food is a burnt tongue but Coba manage to create food that has the excitement of spices and flavours without too much heat.
We also ordered the lemongrass bbq pork and the beef phở. I loved the lemongrass dish, it arrives exquisitely presented and you get to mix it all up yourself with some fish sauce.
If you need to fall in love with Vietnamese food, then Coba is the place to come. Enjoy!

While the food at CoBa is nothing revolutionary, it was executed in a pretty high standard (the savoury dishes) and it can totally stood toe to toe, if not better against some of the more established Vietnamese restaurants in London such as Cay Tre. One of the major issue for me is its location, it is literally in the middle of no where, it took me about 15 minutes to get there from King Cross station and along the way it is just a pile of developing flats so the area is pretty dead at night. I would happily return to CoBa if I am a local but it just doesn’t warrant for me to pay a special visit.

Yum.
This is the kind of place that makes me glad to be a Unilocaler. My husband mentioned that he had spotted people eating noodles through the window on his bus ride home, so I peeked at the happy reviews on Unilocal,and we headed straight over.
We were both sooo glad we came!
— the waitresses were all really friendly and helpful, even though it was already pretty busy by 7pm.
— it looks really nice (slightly hipster, but still welcoming) and there is a gorgeous spicy smell to greet you as you arrive!
— the menu is short, but everything sounds delicious! I like short, but sweet menus.
We tried the prawn toast… It was like a massive prawn dumpling crossed with toast, and came with a truly gorgeous spicy dipping sauce.
We also tried the duck ramen and the beef phở… Marc said his was the best phở he has ever eaten (he had even had phở for lunch today too!!) I LOVED the duck ramen! It was not like any Japanese ramen I have ever tried, but the flavours were really tasty (slightly sweeter than most ramen) and I would happily go back several days in a row to eat exactly the same thing!
We normally share food (so we can try more of the flavours…) But this time we both loved our own bowls so much that we slurped everything without swapping. Oops.
Anyway, CoBa only opened recently, but it is definitely worth wandering up from kings cross to try this! It is already really busy so I imagine it will be full to bursting once all the locals realise how tasty it is.

I’ll preface this review with saying I visited during the soft launch of Coba.
My friend and I booked in via Grub Club for a trial menu. The restaurant itself is a stroll from kings cross station, and was a welcome, bright and well designed space. The host and owner, Damon greeted us and we were seated and soon served up a welcome drink of Coba Tea– which was refreshing with elderflower and lemon… and vodka!
Our starters were spring rolls and summer rolls. I preferred the summer rolls, with prawn and pork, but found they had a bit more rice noodle filling and less veggies than I’d like. The dipping sauce was fantastic! Peanut and tamarind flavours coming through. Spring rolls were tasty too, not at all greasy which was very welcomed.
For my main I ordered the duck ramen. When it arrived in a steaming bowl brimming with veggies, I was very pleased with my choice! The duck was tender and well cooked to a nice medium rare. The broth was full of flavour, but mid way through my dish I was slightly overwhelmed with a background of sweetness, be sure where that came from. Tasty noodles as well, and loads of veggies, really enjoyed the fennel and hint of ginger.
Dessert was a chocolate coconut and jam spin was, but was not to my taste– not a criticism as I just don’t like shredded coconut.
Service was friendly, but felt a bit disorganised and pace was quite slow. Had to ask a few times for water and drinks to be refilled. I’m sure this can be rectified with a bit more time and practice, so optimistic that Coba can be a great success!

Now in its first few weeks of opening I knew (currently till start of Nov 7^th to be precise) there is a soft launch. Love trying new places when they are starting out as get a good feel of the place and vibe before returning. I like vietnamese bbq vibe this was pitched as so I had to come. It’s an Aussie — Vietnamese brainchild of this venture. To me the Aussies are making big inroads in gastronomy and service so I’m all for this.
The décor is quite minimal without being bare. Actually has lovely warm lighting that makes the open space quite comforting. I turned up at 8.30 to be told id have to wait around as it was packed. No problem I said. And they were nice to say wait at bar. Of course that meant a few cheeky drinks.
Whiskey sour please. Check. A good one too. I think he said it was Vietnamese take on Whiskey Sour or a Brooklyn Sour. I can’t find site so can’t confirm but it was good sour!
In terms of lighting as I mentioned for some reason it wasn’t the greatest for taking photos. But that’s me an art director and picky. While we waited the manager gave us free prawn crackers and barman was friendly suggesting drinks too.
Onto the food. Had a duck ramen. Lovely broth. Rich and brooding. I must say the food comes out when it’s done, which for me is fine though I know some wouldn’t love actually starters first and ours came out literally all in one go within say 10 mins — as long as it’s fresh I’m never complaining. All about the food for me. I have total respect for chef and back staff on this front.
The sides of prawn toast was strange. But a good strange. Never seen prawn toast done this way. Fried Spring rolls were accidentally served to us so they gave it free on house. The summer spring rolls were good too. I had a warm pork noodle salad. I love this type of stuff so it was a winner for me.
Service was excellent too I must say. No rush to get us out even though we were last too.