Coco Bean Cafe joined the cafe scene in Dehiwala not too long ago. With a cutesy interior and promises of an experience that's good, we hoped for the best when we braved our way through the post-office-traffic and almost hazardous amount of pollution.
However, while the interior followed through with its unspoken promises, the food was a whole other story. More on that in a bit.
The Ambience
As we've said in the introductory paragraph, the ambience at Coco Bean Cafe is quite lovely. With rustic tweaks here and there, cheesy coffee-related quotes and warm lighting all pulled together by the power of the option of staring at vehicles as they trudge through traffic without the negatives of it, we liked it.
Essentially a combination of a mix of tables, chairs and Kiss Fm playing in the background whilst they show a muted adaptation of Pink Panther, we had nothing to complain about. Plus, they deserve like 20 extra points for having not one but 2 sofas.
The Food
Coco Bean, being a cafe and such does food that makes a cafe what it is. Spanning through the likes of coffee, sandwiches, waffles, 3 kinds of cake and a few juicy options, the menu isn't large, but they've got variety.
We started off with the Chicken Submarine (Rs.450) which was served with a handful of store-bought fries.
Leaning slightly more towards the drier side of things, the bun was a bit tough, but manageable nonetheless. What really struck us was the chicken filling. Paired with the combo of mayo, cheese, a hint of lettuce and veggies, the chicken filling looked great but tasted strangely bizarre. They had probably used some old oil or something because the chicken reeked of musty oil and was all in all rather unpleasant because the mustiness made the rest of the flavours practically disappear into thin air.
When we got the Cheese and Chicken Waffle (Rs. 700), we hoped to God that the mustiness wasn't there. But, alas, there it was. Flooding your tastebuds and making any other flavour practically nonexistent, the waffle too was killed by this unfortunate addition.
The whole scene is really sad because the rest of the waffle itself was quite good. The chicken was heaped with cheese and ketchup and had quite a few flavours running through once you learn to ignore the must.
Soft, with a light crunch, the waffle broke off easily the waffle was slightly on the milkier side of the spectrum and tasted good.
The coffee at Coco Bean was much better than the food. We wound up with an Americano (Rs. 300), that, although a bit on the diluted side of things packed enough of a punch to keep things interesting, and awake.
The highlight of our experience at Coco Bean Cafe had to be the Mango Juice (Rs. 350). A mix of just the right amount of sweetness with the perfect pack of sour to pull it through, we absolutely loved this one. If you do happen to go to Coco Bean after reading this, we suggest getting the mango juice.
Service
Yet another positive aspect of our experience happened to be with the staff. Fast-paced and unobtrusive, the staff at Coco Bean was great. They managed to bring our food within 15 minutes fo placing our order and were all in all fantastic.
Conclusion
Our experience at Coco Bean Cafe was quite all right. But, most of why it wasn't so great revolved around this one tiny flaw which can be changed without any sort of effort. So, there's no telling whether your experience will be as bad here as well, thus we say, give it a shot.
