OKO - A Pan Asian Restaurant — Restaurant in Chandigarh

OKO at @thelalitchandigarh driven by @chefsuriya11 is rooted in Authentic Pan Asian Cuisine. Chef Suriya has returned after a hiatus of about 4 years bringing once again his exceptional skills in Thai Cuisine to the Tricity. Trained at the iconic Blue Elephant Restaurant & Culinary School in Bangkok, where he later taught too, makes Chef Suriya a stalwart when it comes to Thai Cuisine and it was apparent in every dish we had for lunch.

I was completely blown away by the Qingzheng Jiayu, steamed whole fish with Soy Sauce, Ginger, Scallions etc served in a watery sauce that's a result of all these ingredients being steamed together with the fish. It's a light, simple and addictive dish. The delicate fish sucked up all the flavours of that delicious sauce and it was heavenly!

I loved Pad Thai, one of my favourite dishes. Flat rice noodles stir-fried, is essentially a street food & eaten for any meal of the day.

The Burmese Khao Suey was incredibly light, flavourful & balanced! Amongst the best, I've had recently.

The Pad Krapow Gai, a minced chicken stir fry with fragrant basil is sweetish, savoury and a bit spicy.

While everyone loved the Coconut Caramel Cake, which was faultless, I was a bit partial towards ThapThim Krop, which is named amongst the top 50 desserts by CNN Travel. Little pieces of crunchy Water Chestnuts coloured red using beetroot juice rolled in Tapioca Flour, boiled and served in slightly sweetened coconut milk & Ice cubes! The fruity crunchy sweetish dessert is phenomenal. A truly unique dessert that shouldn't be missed!

Thai Cuisine is interesting cause it was never colonised, and was always a centre of trade hence the influences on its cuisine have been mostly adopted by the Thai people rather than forced upon them! For that very reason, it's an extremely unique cuisine that adopts contrasting flavours in most of its dishes, and considering we have Chef Suriya back in town, I can optimistically say a great culinary experience awaits you at OKO!

P.S....

Dining at OKO has always been a luxurious and scrumptious experience. It is even more so now after Chef Suriya has returned from Thailand.

One of the best Khao Suey’s I’ve ever had. The consistency of the curry and all the various condiments was perfectly balanced and it started my meal in a perfect way.

In main course I really enjoyed the Pad Thai Noodles, Thai green curry with steamed rice and Gai Pad Krapow, which is Thai minced chicken cooked with basil, chili peppers and garlic.

The food is cooked with care, served with style and the overall dining experience could not have been better.

The desserts were the real showstoppers. We had two servings each of Tub Tim Grob and Coconut Caramel custard. Tub Tim Grob is something you shouldn’t miss. These are water chestnuts served in coconut cream and crushed ice. It was downright amazing and something new that I had never tried before.

I would suggest OKO to start a tasting menu along with its a-la-carte menu so that people get to taste dishes that one normally wouldn’t order.

Great experience. Highly...

This place is really good! Authentic Japanese Teppanyaki..we felt we had been transported to Japan.. ! we tried the lamb chops and salmon and both were simply yum!! The Kaffir lime cheesecake was quite spectacular too! The only minor let down was the cocktail that we had. We tried a whiskey sour which was not quite upto mark... they got it fixed after we complained which was good though.. This place is definitely worth going to!...