For starters, drop the meal: O:h Cha review

As a grammar police who likes her punctuation in place, O:h Cha has me hooked from the start. While I never end up deciphering that stray colon, I do manage to sip on some of their summer cocktails, with ‘Pan-Asian’ starters on the side.

O:h Cha, one of the several dining options at Lower Parel’s Mathuradas Mills Compound, can be a bit tricky to locate. Once there, I find myself in a dining hall with understated décor. An odd mix of yellow cane-lanterns, party hats, Buddha faces and an IPL-ready big screen makes sure the wine-sipper and the beer-guzzler can break bread together.
My first order, the Lemongrass Basil Martini, lives up to its summer-friendly name. I let the consoling whiff of basil, the zesty, almost sparkly taste of the drink, linger, as I dig into some Okra Potato. Rendered crunchy with onions, celery and crushed black pepper, the sider does a good job of liberating the veggies from their plain Jane image.
I move on to the hukka-style Grilled Chicken Balls, giving a royal cold shoulder to the bland vegetable dumpling. The Grilled Prawn Cake is nice enough, however, it is the tenderness of the prawn dumpling, served in a naturally-coloured jacket of potato starch and chives, that gets my attention.
Before I can make space for the last starter, I call for liquid refurbishment, this time, a Frozen Margarita. The base flavour can be customised, and I fancy the feminine, very-Sex and the City (It’s no Pink Cosmo, but whispers femme vigour all the same), Strawberry-with-crushed ice. In my last lap, I am faced with the Pandan-wrapped chicken—fried chicken in screwpine leaves. The wood-smoke flavour of the Pandan leaves is attractive, the meat, as good as any.
O:h Cha’s food, like its décor, is an intelligent mix of classy and cool. The starters leave me wondering about their main course; as for the cocktails, I’d say Carrie Bradshaw would approve.