Coa de Jima — Restaurant in Boise

Overall a great place to eat and will definitely repeat!

Made by the same folks who made Barbacoa, I think that both helps my rating. On the one hand, I love Barbacoa so much and think very highly of the creators that any othe restaurant they spin off is going to seem at least "pretty good" to me. On the other hand, Barbacoa sets the bar so high (especially for steak) that it's hard to meet that bar consistently.

Coa de Jima has a very different vibe, driven by decor with a character that's distinct from Barbacoa, and also because it's in the heart of downtown. It's really cool to dine in the middle of the city! To get to the restroom, you have to walk through a secret door that looks like a large framed painting on the wall. Love that.

Service wise, just like its sister restaurant, the service here is impeccable!

The food here is very good- there is heavy focus on seafood dishes, but plenty of good options for non-seafood eaters such as myself. The BOGO wines by the glass is great during happy hour, and the portions are generous. Like its sister restaurant, prices are surprisingly low for how much food you get here.

I ordered the Carne Nortena. Here is the description, straight from their menu:

"16oz. Grilled Rib Eye topped with caramelized onions and served with two chicken enchiladas in salsa verde. Presented with refritos, ancho rice, guacamole and Mexican crema."

Overall I'd order this dish again! Loved the flavors at play here. A great variety when combined with the chicken and salsa verde. The sides were good too, and the guac seemed fresh.

For the ribeye steak, I don't think the steak they served me tonight could have stood on its own. It was thin, but I understand that given its not really a traditional steak platter, this is probably intentional with all the sides it comes with. But, with such a thin steak, it's easy to overcook. I ordered medium rare and the steak was medium- borderline medium well- the moment it arrived to me (I cut into it right away). The worst part of me was the toppings on the steak. Now, to each their own. I'm a bit of a steak purist and generally don't like anything besides perhaps butter on top of my steak. The caramelized onions aren't so bad either (see aforementioned menu excerpt). However, what I didn't like at all was the giant glob of guacamole smeared on top of the steak. I really didn't like that AND I felt like I was misled into thinking it would be on the side. Going back to the menu excerpt, it said, "rib eye topped with caramelized onions", then goes on to say what items are served on the SIDE, "chicken enchiladas.... presented with refritos, ancho rice, guacamole, and Mexican crema." I feel like the way this is worded indicates the guac would be on the side, NOT on the steak. Not a huge deal here as I just scraped most of it off. However there was still some guac residue/flavor left behind. This made the dish seem more like a carne asada platter (just, not cut) than a steak experience.

Again, it didn't taste bad, but not what I was expecting/hoping for. Also, of course, because the steak was more medium+, it was a bit dry and tough. I'm guessing it was Choice meat or similar, which is fine, but is much less forgiving when...

Good but not great. It suffers from the same issue its sibling restaurants do - they all put style over substance. That's a problem when you're paying $100+ per person.

The side dishes and appetizers were fantastic. Chile rellenos and the mashed potatoes were especially good. And the lobster tail was the best I've ever had.

But my NY strip steak was underseasoned and bland, the exact same issue I had with Barbacoa. I had to ask for extra salt to make the steak taste like... steak. I'm not a person who likes things extra salty - these are the only two restaurants where I've put extra salt on a dish. But the steak is supposed to be the star of the show, and it was just mediocre.

I also think it's a little bit telling that they use nice looking but terrible cutting steak knives. Again, style over substance.

The dessert empanadas were very good but also cold in the middle. I think they were supposed to be that way, but it made them worse than if the filling were warm.

And the chocolate tres leches was just kind of weird. Ironically this had too much salt (another thing that happened at Barbacoa!) and wasn't sweet or chocolatey enough. And the texture felt like eating mushy Oreos pre-dipped in milk. Would definitely not recommend.

The service was fine but definitely a step down from their other two restaurants. Again, if you're paying close to $100+ per person, the restaurant needs to nail the food or the service and I don't think Coa de Jima did either. That's on top of the parking being a pain. There's definitely better high end restaurants downtown and...

As a frequent dinner at their parent restaurant, Barbacoa, I was hugely disappointed in my experience with Coa de Jima.

Maybe my expectations were too high but a restaurant that is charging premium prices for a premium dining experience they really should have gone the extra mile.

My experience at Coa was with a few friends. We ordered a bottle of wine, oysters, and their octopus appetizer which had good flavour and came out as expected. However the dishes that we all ordered (fish, beef, and chicken) all came out at varying times and temperatures. The sides we had were cold (potatoes, broccoli, i can't remember the third) and some of the mains were also undercooked.

This was unfortunate especially because when we brought it to the servers attention he apologetically took it back to be fixed only to return cold again.

Our server was great and so I think the problem really resides with the kitchen in the back. I am not sure what is going on there but my experience is not solitary and I have heard similar reviews from friends.

On top of all of this the wait for our food, the varying times each of our dishes came out(meaning we had to wait quite a while for all of us to get our main to start eating), the presentation and expectation that our food would be hot upon arrival did not validate the prices we paid.

Being the sister restaurant of Barbacoa, they are setting a high expectation of service and in my experience, they did not meet that. I'll be waiting for my reservation at...