Recently, I was invited to learn more about Coca and The Art of Ojiya by my friend Gwen.
Coca is another one of the great restaurants that fall under the Mother Spice Group. This group of restaurants touts really great local eateries, some of which began in Bangkok.
When I arrived at the restaurant I realized that we would be enjoying a feast of hot pot delights. The tables were overflowing with individual plates of different items that I knew would all be quite lovely to cook in a steaming pot of dual broths.
Karen and Ida from Mother Spice, explained to us what The Art of Ojiya is, by asking the servers to demonstrate how we would all make our different rice porridges to mark the end of our Taiwanese hot pot meal.
“No two Ojiyas are alike.”
Yes, this is true.
So what is The Art of Ojiya?
At Coca, you get to enjoy your hot pot meal with two different broths. We were given a chicken broth and a Tom Yum broth to start. Both of these broths were already delicious on their own, however, what we needed to do, was choose how we would cook our meal and then boil our rice (or Ojiya) afterwards.
For our Tom Yum broth, Cha, Vance, Adrian and I decided to make this broth a hearty seafood soup, while for our chicken based broth, we opted to use chicken, pork, and beef to make this broth a more rich and meaty counterpart to our seafood soup.
After we cooked all of our meats and vegetables, we began cooking our Ojiya.
The process involves adding one cup of cooked white rice into the each of the different broths. We simmered it on medium high heat to not only break up each grain of rice, but we did so to boil some of the excess soup to evaporate leaving a thick and hearty rice porridge that was full of the flavors from our hot pot.
Now, ya’ll know I’m a little competitive, right?
Well once our hosts said that we would be competing against one another for a competition in taste, I had to be sure to encourage my seatmates that we should be ready to bring home “Best in Taste” to our table. (competitive much? hehehe)
@purpleplumfairy, @adsthegreat, and @yellowyum taking photos of our finished Ojiya.
The good thing?
We were all on board with trying our best, tasting as we went along, and even working as a team to garnish our dishes so they would be just as visually appetizing as we knew they tasted.
Check out our good work:
I had to leave early to run to another appointment. But, I did see some more dishes in my feed that made me sorry I had to leave so early! Just check out this delicious CRAB dish that my seatmates enjoyed after Cha and I had left. I’ve already made plans to go back and visit Coca again so that Nino and I and the kids can try this dish!
For more information:
COCA FB: Coca Restaurant SM Aura Premier
COCA IG: @cocarestaurantph
For reservations call: 02-955-2022 or 917-813-9760
