Review of Coco

Modern Puerto Rican Cuisine




 

THIS IS A REVIEW OF SATURDAY NIGHT ONLY!
THE FORMAT OF OTHER NIGHTS VARIES AND IS NOT BEING REVIEWED HERE.


PASEO BORICUA - Un Pedacito de Patria en Chicago

Paseo Boricua, which stretches along Division Street from Western Avenue to Mozart, represents a microcosm of the Puerto Rican historical and cultural experience. The 50 light poles adorned with laser-etched wrought iron banners, representing images of the three cultural experiences that define the Puerto Rican people (the Taino, Spanish and West African,) the 16 placitas along the walkway; and the variety of businesses with a Puerto Rican accent, all testify to this reality. Coco Restaurant is one such business that testifies to this reality in their food, music and hospitality.

Although primarily a restaurant serving wonderful, moderately priced, Puerto Rican cuisine, come 10:30 pm on Saturday nights it transforms into a great dance club.

As we arrive at 9:00 pm for our dinner reservations, the owner, José, heartily welcomes us to his establishment as if being welcomed into his home. We strolled past the long bar stretching down the right side of the room, which was already lined with patrons, between the tables in the center of the room and on our left, past the end of the bar to an open area filled with booths and tables just before the DJ booth, to our seats. Our waitress immediately appears, introduces herself and takes our drink orders, happily serving us fruit juice and water. One of the nice aspects of dancing in restaurants is that they always have a great variety of non alcoholic drinks, as does Coco's.

By the time I finished my delicious mufungo and fried plantains, the band was tuning up and I, as was most of the multi-generational, ethnically diverse crowd, was ready to dance! Everybody is here and they are all having a marvelous time together.

The tables in the center of the room have already been removed to clear a space in which to dance on the nice hardwood floor and it is clear that the well dressed crowd is here to mingle and dance. The only aspect of Coco's that is a disappointment is simply that it is too small. The non dancers are standing around crowding the floor and the dance area is in the pathway down the center of the room with dinners on one side and the bar on the other, so as people move up and down the or all the way to the rear of the room for the clean and well supplied restrooms, they invade the dance space. Most of the beginner to intermediate level dancers really don't mind this at all as they are there to have a good time and not to "perform" for the crowd, although the crowd was very appreciative and enthusiastic of those that did show off a few moves for them.

If Cha Cha is one of your favorite dances, you will enjoy this evening as the band played a good number of Cha Cha's along with their Salsa, seasoned with a Latin Jazz favor, which was the primary music of the night. However, if you wanted to hear Bachata or Merengue, you had to wait for the breaks when the DJ, who surprisingly was not deaf and played his music at a reasonable volume, took over and played some good, slamming Salsa along with his Bachata and Merengue. As there are thankfully no flashing lights or fog machine for the DJ to play with so he concentrated his energies and efforts to just playing good music for us to dance. Not only didn't I have to breathe any fog from a machine, but I didn't breathe any sm?ke either. I don't recall seeing anyone smoking but if they did, it was not noticeable.

Well, after all the good music, wonder people and kind, friendly management, I regret it time to leave, but I certainly don't mind the short walk to the car, as we, and many others had parked on the street in front of Coco's.

If you are looking to meet and mingle with a pleasant group of people in a nice place, or just want to have a drink and enjoy the action around you, then Coco Restaurant is a great place to spend your Saturday night.

If you are a Salsa dancer looking to get your Salsa high, this is a very nice place to go, particularly if you want enjoy some Puerto Rican food and hear a live band. The only item that keeps this from being a great Salsa place is the available dance space. I will definitely be returning again and again to this fine establishment.

Ratings:


As a Latin Dance Venue:



4 of 5 Rhythmic Bodies



As a Salsa Dance Venue:



4 of 5 Salsa couples