Eats: Fusion Italian @ Ocha Bella

My first visit to Ocha Bella is probably one year ago, for drinks at night. All of us had prior dinner elsewhere, which means there were only space for nibbles. Although my memory of that night was rather vague, but I recalled that the food was good.

I had the opportunity to visit Ocha Bella again came when one of Hubs's longtime friend visited and wanted to meet up for dinner on a Friday night. He was staying in Central Jakarta, so naturallly dinner has gotta be somewhere around there to avoid traffic jam. Ocha Bella has a sister restaurant that was opened recently at Plaza Indonesia. We initially wanted to go there but can't secure a table. And that's when Ocha Bella came up. Hubs made a call and we got our table! :)

After picking up Hubs's friend we adjourned to Ocha Bella which turned out to be very near where his friend was staying. Surprisingly, the place isn't as packed as I thought it would be, because most restaurants in Jakarta are almost always fully booked on Friday nights. It's hard to get a table if you walk-in with a group of 4 onwards and even if they are able to sit you in, you gotta vacate the table by 9ish onwards because of a preexisting booking.

Through some social events, Hubs got to know the executive chef of Ocha and he came over to say hi when we were finally seated at our table. He made some recommendations of their specialties, and we left it to him to whip up a selection of their specialty starters and a pizza to share. And as they say, the rest is history as we were immediately transported to gastronomic heaven when the food arrived.

For starters we had pan-seared scallop with some tomato garnish served individually on a potato chip, a sauteed dish of seasonal mushrooms, beef churrasco and pizza of tomato sauce, rocket, ham and mozzarella. The pizza was served last and when we saw all the starters with the pizza, all of us were left wondering if we can finish our mains. However, everything was yummy and with good company, we somehow managed to finish all of it. Regrettably I couldn''t taste the pizza because of my wheat allergy, but trust me I was so tempted to because it looked, smell and according to my fellow tasters, tasted delicious.

For mains, Hubs ordered the aglio olio with angel hair pasta, which according to him was awesome, while I had grilled pork chop that's marinated in a spicy tomato sauce. The pork chop was quite a thick cut but the marination was done very well in such that even the middle portion of the meat was bursting with flavour.

Hubs's friend brought along two of his friends and I requested permission of one to take a photo of her meal. I thought it was an interesting dish because it was baked spaghetti with assorted seafood in a tomato-based sauce. I probably would have ordered this, if it's not because of my wheat allergy. According to her, it was very delicious.

To end my meal, I ordered green ocha to help with the digestion of such an indulgent meal.Of course,  no Italian meal is complete with limoncello served at the end of the meal and I was pleasantly surprised when our waitress served up 5 glasses - compliments of the chef. And of course, I can't help but to take a picture of my final course that night, which I thought represented the restaurant very well. :)

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Ocha Bella
Jl. KH Wahid Hasyim No. 70
Kebon Sirih Menteng Jakarta Pusat