Watches & Jewellery
There is something about brunches that I totally love - they are relaxing, mostly have a wide menu to dig into (where I do not have to tweak my food choices to fit others to reduce overordering), and have an informal air about them, that sits beautifully with my personality. And now that the season to wine and dine is upon us, and the weather is behaving itself, I am perpetually scanning Zomato and other food aggregators, to check out new brunch offerings in town.
Interestingly, I find brunches are the new way to be. Once limited to five-stars, almost every city eatery is now keen on introducing Sunday brunches. While the options are plenty, and it is hard to make a choice, An Asian Affair brunch at Koko in Mumbai's Lower Parel catches my fancy. I am someone who can do Asian anytime, anywhere. I can spend hours looking at pictures of colourful sushi, delicious baos, and Asian curries, while imagining and salivating. Koko's brunch menu, full with dumplings and sushis, seemed like just the thing I was looking for.
Lower Parel is Mumbai's new business district, and Koko is located right in the middle of all the action, in Kamala Mills, which over the years, has emerged to be a food hub, apart from the numerous offices it houses. This being a Sunday, and with offices closed, I was hoping to walk into a slightly empty restaurant, but no, the place was almost full-up. Brunch lovers, like me were indeed on the rise, I observed.
Straight off the menu
The menu is a perfect balance of a range of Vegetarian and Non-Vegetarian Salads, Soups, Dimsums, and Sushis. The best part: we are told we just had to make the selections, and the servers would them to our tables. More laziness, is equal to a perfect Sunday, I thought to myself! We started with a portion of Veg Soup, the Sweet Corn Edamame soup, before moving on to the lipsmacking Tom Sam Salad which is a mix of green papaya, roasted peanuts, and rice crackers, complete with a citrusy Thai dressing. So perfect! The Pomello & Prawn Goong Yang Salad was yet another salad, we dug deep into!
Meanwhile, the dimsum cart that has been out and about has made a stop at our table, and the server asks us what we would like. The variety on offer made me want to cry with joy, and gleefully, we settled for Prawns, Chicken, Pork and Duck to start with. Each came with their own selection of sauces, and were complete melt-in-the-mouth, every ingredient standing tall and speaking for itself.
The variety of sushi, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian too was mindboggling (read maki, tempura, rice rolls) and were without doubt, and we can vouch are some of the best in town! There is also a live counter for noodles, but our tummies were so full and happy with what we had, we decided to give the noodles a miss. Instead, we rounded our meal off with a beautifully-presented dessert that went by the name Lamington: a butter sponge cake that came with coconut ice cream, and the taste of which still lingers in my mouth.
I can happily say this is one Brunch, I see myself coming back for again!
Where: Koko, Kamala Mills, Lower Parel
Cost: 2500 INR per person
