Food review: Koh-m again?

For those who care to remember, Intercontinental is of course the Natraj, once famous for the ice-cream parlour, Yankee Doodle, which had the best mint jazz flavour as well as a spectacular view of the Marine Drive Bay and then after that famous for the disco RG’s where Mumbai’s celebs hung out long before the Page 3 culture consumed our city and in the old days when the rich and wannabe famous actually paid to go out.

Anyway, that’s an old story. Natraj became Intercontinental many years ago and the past gets buried very quickly sometimes. We pick Koh, the Thai restaurant, which from the lobby looks very stylish, all lavender curtains and blue accents. Inside, the theme is lavender-blue and then sort of graphic Thai design in yellow and black with touches of red. You could almost imagine yourself to be in two different restaurants.

We start with a Som Tam crab salad which the menu said was a signature Koh dish — three little batter-fried soft shell crabs with a very generous serving of green papaya, carrot, bean and green mango salad with a chilli-cream dressing and peanut garnish. The crabs unfortunately lost their flavour in the thick batter but the salad was very refreshing.

For the main course, we decide we must have a curry and opt for the lamb Mussaman and also what the menu called a Mediterranean prawns but was served to us as garlic prawns.

This much I can say, the prawns in the Mediterranean are very small but the taste was fresh with a very light sauce. However the dish seemed more like a starter than a main course — six little prawns?

The Mussaman curry was more substantial and therefore more effective - a lamb shank simmered for 12 hours so the meat fell off the bone and the gravy was lightly redolent of coconut milk and spices. The flavours at Koh are very subtle.

So far, so okay: the portions are small and the prices are way up there. The music was some sort of techno grunge, which doesn’t always fit in the daytime and the menu was electronic which was gimmicky but really made no difference to the meal or the ordering process.

Koh stood out for two elements — the desserts and the service — which more or less made up for the rest of the meal. The guava and apple crumble was recommended and was scrumptious — a light, crisp pastry, which enclosed pieces of fruit and was drizzled with caramel and vanilla sauces and served with vanilla ice-cream. One of the best desserts of recent times.

The other was a flourless chocolate cake, with a nutty base, lots of chocolate and coffee ice-cream to cut the sweetness. Also excellent, though the guava crumble won the day.

The service was very good with knowledgeable waiters who knew their menu.