After hours of shopping and turning into walking zombies, all a person needs is good food and a place to sit, which we can all agree is more difficult to get in a food court than a local train on weekends. For Thanekars, that place came in the form of a bohemian restaurant and bar.
KOA, the newly opened restaurant in Thane’s Korum Mall, gives a calm, serene foreign land vibe. It has an open landscape with an oval-shaped open bar in the middle of the restaurant. There’s a private dining area, cabana-inspired seating tables with white drapes and small macrame chandeliers that screams boho. An influencers’ hub, KOA is one of the most Instagrammable restaurants and we visited this place to check it out.
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Just like Thane, a city whose eternal confusion is whether it is a part of Mumbai or not, KOA is also confused about what to keep on the menu and what not to. So, here we are sitting at the end table flipping through the menu, cuisine after cuisine — American, Italian, Asian, Thai, Indian — also confused about what to eat. Good thing? You have so many options to choose from. Flip side? You have too many options to choose from.
Finally, we started with a Citrus Sunset cocktail and an array of starters, including Saffron Cottages, Roasted Mushroom, Brocolli Mousse Cake, Red Quinoa Arancini Ball, different types of sushi, and our personal favourite Kothimbir Wadi with spicy thecha (Maharashtrian chilly chutney) which is soft, flavourful and yet maintained its simplicity. Although the paneer-based Saffron Cottages would be an all-time familiar dish, we recommend going for Asparagus and Tempura Roll and Avocado Roll sushi dipped in soy sauce and head-hitting wasabi. We literally froze for a couple of seconds as the wasabi made its presence known to our sinuses.
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For the main course, we opted for something classic Indian — Paneer Tikka Masala paired with Kori Roti and Aloo Paratha. Now, we didn’t love the ratio of oil in the gravy, but keeping that aside, the sabzi is what everyone would love to have with their families. As we said, it was a classic, especially paired with paratha. You can also pair it with naan, garlic naan Punjabi kulcha and it will still taste wonderful.
For dessert, we got a lemon-shaped Yuzu Lemonade. The strikingly realistic-looking dessert has a mix of lemon and mandarin orange citrus fruit flavours with a thick textured shell and faux water droplets. We almost felt bad driving our spoon through it, but it was worth it.
Meal for two: INR 2,000 (excluding alcohol). At Korum Mall, Thane.
Also read: Review: Mumbai's Que Sera Sera will transport you back to Europe's deliciousness