I only knew Goa to have Feni as their drink and Pork chorizo sausages for food. My knowledge about Goan dishes was so little that I didn't know what to expect during my holiday there last month. On my 30 something birthday, the family decided to do a week long vacation in Goa and the food was the last thing I was looking forward to.
We landed and headed straight for lunch to the Ritz classic http://www.ritzclassic.com/
in Panjim (midway to our hotel), an old seafood thali restaurant with multiple chains in Goa (somewhat like the Sarvana Bhavan). This place is extremely crowded with locals, and the waiting, chaotic. In order to get served a Fish Thali, try reaching these restaurants by 12 pm or 12.30 pm. In case you are running late, only a few places offer a good fish thali after 2.45 pm/3 pm or you expect to get served side dishes in your thali which are more North Indian in tasting; owing to the tardiness most thali accompaniments get over by 2.30 pm. At Ritz we were served at 2.50 pm, after a 35 minute wait, and of course the mattar-paneer made its way to our thali as a side dish. But, the thali was beyond my expectations, such great accompaniments, I was greedy for everything on my plate.
The fish preparation that we ordered came in Recheado paste, a deep red colour. There is also a Cafreal paste, a green one made of coriander, chili, ginger and garlic, which I personally liked more.
The Recheado flavours are an acquired taste, it is a tangy-sweet-savoury-spicy marination which gives fish or any seafood preparation a red colour . Much like the byadige chili in Mangalorean cooking.
With our stomachs and hearts full, we slowly moved to our stay at the Le Meridian in Calangute. We were staying here for the first two nights. Calangute is a total mess of a place (and has been every time I visited Goa), hate the area but loved our buffet breakfasts at the hotel. The pool and beach being so accessible made up for everything on top of it.
Chef Karan Kohli, the Executive Chef at the Meridien is running a top notch kitchen service here. As an ex hospitality employee, I was able to notice the service, knowledge and promptness of the F&B and the Kitchen team. Chef Karan was always prompt in his responses, extremely helpful and generous. His suggestions were on point with respect to our vibe with food, and I thank him so much for that.
The variety of local Maharashtrian dishes served, gave us some insight into their street food, the desserts and sweet snacks were brilliant and for that I must commend the Patisserie team separately. Even my birthday cake was super!
My family and I connected with the Chef over food, over my homeland Coorg and even sharing the same birth date. A lot of the food suggestions for Goa were given by Chef Karan as well who has been living in Goa for the past 6 years (I think). His friends visiting him that Easter weekend to celebrate his birthday are locals also added greatly to our list of places to visit in Goa.
Another take away from the crappy Calangute was our chat with Chef Sahil Desai at the Taj Holiday Village. We went over to the hotel for a tea break and a spectacular beach view, but ended up staying for 2hrs-3 hrs. Chef Sahil has so many stories to share about the history, people and cooking in Goa. I loved his knowledge about the food and its origin. He told us how the local thalis in Goa are the best, and how each Fish/ Prawn Curry is made, a Hindu Goan cook for instance makes the curry differently than a Christian Goan cook. Chef Sahil who has been living in Goa for 11 years has studied so much about the place and the nature of tourism that you can expect hours rich learning if you spend time with him.
Driving back from the hotel towards Calangute, the local gaados (gaadi walas) or street food trucks in Calangute can be tried. The Beef Cutlet Pav, Raas Omelette, Fish Cutlet Pav and Fish Pakoras. The popular gaados are in a lane opposite the football field. The lane drives upward, where a few gaados can be spotted selling these delicious snacks. A convenient spot for the tired and hungry football players. We however, reached an empty lane on a Saturday evening, and were told that the gaados would be available only post Easter. In the coming days, we tried snacks at
1. Simone's bakery https://simoniasgoa.com/ to pack local goodies take back home,
2. Joseph's bakery https://www.facebook.com/josephbakerymapusa , a family run bakery best known for their meat patties
4. D'Silva in Miramar, where the Beef cutlet pav below is from
We tried the Beef Cutlet, Chicken and Beef Croquettes, Fish Cutlet and Cakes. Try these in any bakery, the pav, cutlets and the cakes are excellent. I have never tried cake so soft at a local bakery such from these, the quality throughout our trip was consistently great wrt desserts.
Other bakeries and food trucks to tryare:
Cafe S.F. Xavier's
Padaria Prazeres
Carrey's
Our last night in Calangute was at the Calamari, the famous seafood restaurant by the bay. You can totally avoid it though. You can never go wrong with the seafood preparations of Crab/ Squid/ Prawns made in butter garlic, or if it's rawa fried so we stuck to these orders at the Calamari. The remaining dishes though were negligible.
In Goa, a lot of places are hyped, some for no good reason. Rather than going with only food reviews online, speak to the locals, and when I say speak to them, I mean have a conversation. Ask them about what you really want recommendations for. For instance, knowing we were tourists, we were told to go to "popular" restaurants, like Antares, Thalassa, Baba au Rhum, Fisherman's Wharf etc. but the more we asked around and indulged in small talk, they suggested street food joints and local shacks, some were basic and others high-end but better known for their food and drink, than its ambience or hype. Our entire itinerary was planned in these conversations.
Our next stay was at an old Portuguese villa in Reis Magos. While we never wanted to leave this beautiful home, we had access to a lot of places for Fish Thali. We had lunch on Easter at the
1) Kismoor in Sangolda https://www.kismoorsangolda.com/ . Kismoor used to be Studio 42 Collective, a clothing studio cum cafe which I visited once, a few years ago. Now this acts as a restaurant in the day and is buzzing with live music by night. We were told the thalis are par excellence her, and boy they were!
Other dishes that we ordered and loved were the Chicken Xacutti (another marinade medium spicy and light) and the Poi (Goan bread).
The show stopper of the fish thali is the Rawa fish fry, depending on the size which is standard it is served as a whole or in a half (that is if the size is too large). The accompaniments include:
Kismoor (a stir-fry of dried prawns, coconut grating, chilis, chopped onions, coriander and ginger)
Kokum Water, some places serve it with a mix of yoghurt
Crab stir-fry or a gassi fry in a coconut base
A mackarel or sardine stir fry
Mussels stir fry in a coconut base
And a Sweet. At Kismoor we tried the Serradura for the first time. A Portuguese dessert made with whipped cream, condensed milk and topped with biscuit crumbs or horlicks :)
Other places for the fish thali were:
2) Spice Goa 092848 64594 (honestly, it is hyped for no reason), however I do suggest ordering the fish wrapped in banana leaf made in a green paste marinade. This was truly a winner side dish.
3) Vinayak Family Restaurant 090493 80518 , the hype is all for good reason. This place has one of the best fish thalis, the side dishes were all on point, there was nothing we wasted or didn't like. Here we got the crab curry as an accompaniment instead of a stir-fry. Most dishes were very South Indian like and hence why we also felt more content with the Thali.
4) Avinash Family Restaurant in Divar island https://avinash-bar-restaurant-bar.business.site/?utm_source=gmb&utm_medium=referral
. We bumped into this place by accident, it was the first place we hit on arrival in Divar island. We were hungry and the fish thali on the menu fit in as the solution perfectly. The thalis are cheaper in Divar and the size of the fish was much bigger.
Other Seafood Thali Places worth trying are:
Fat Fish https://www.fatfishgoa.com/
Kokni Kanteen https://koknikanteen.in/
By the end of the fish thali experience for lunch everyday, the family needed a change of cuisine to balance out our diet and to avoid boredom towards the same kind of food. Here are some of the other places which were recommended by our friends who live in Goa:
1) For Chinese-Indian food, try GoenChin 0832 243 4877, as the name suggests it is a fusion Chinese-Goan food. Much like the old gem, Golden Dragon in Delhi or Rice Bowl in Bangalore, GoenChin is truly a treassure in Panjim. We ordered the sliced pork noodle soup, seafood soup, roast pork and the mixed meat fried rice.
My friend, Shubham Basrur who lives and works in Goa suggested we try the pork at the Assamese restaurant called The Soul Chef https://www.facebook.com/soulchefgoa/ . The place looks like a cozy nook, like an old and small Italian or Portuguese restaurant in the middle of a busy street in Fontainhas, Panjim. A cute yellow house with a few tables and the lovely smell of bamboo and meat fills the air in this restaurant. Our chat with owner was truly soulful and made for a pleasant start to our night. One must try the spicy chili pork and the bamboo shoot pork curry. Since we are weekly consumers of Northeast Indian cuisine, this meal was like having home food. We took the food to go, we wanted eat this at the villa with some homemade Goan wine and after a game of carrom. It was our idea of having soulful food in a more relaxed environment.
On our last night in Goa we were at a shack called Babazin 077986 85862, in Nerul. This place by the sea is quiet, with an endless view of the ocean. The place was almost empty with just a couple of tables occupied by local families, exactly the kind of place we wanted to unwind at. The butter garlic calamari is excellent, we also tried the Goan Chorizo Pulao, which wasn't bad either. It was the breezy ambience, with a flooring of sand and the neelkamal chairs that added to the whole casual and lazy experience. What came at the end was the real takeaway, the Serradura, the topping this time was with horlicks). I can now say that the Serradura at Babazin is one of the best we have had.
On our way to the airport the following day, we were invited for lunch to my Mum's friends house in the Naval Cantonement of Goa. While rushing to the airport, we made a quick stop at Aunty Liz's house and had a traditional Kerala style meal, chicken biryani, prawn curry, aviyal, lentil curry, cut mango pickle and pappadum. So delicious and wholesome.
It is impossible to summate this beautiful, diverse food journey or even explain the flavours we tasted, but I hope the pictures speak to you more than my words have. I realized that to have a worthy trip with an experience such as this with food, is to travel with like minded people. Our family, we had each other, we have been great friends more so because the five of us have similar tastes in almost everything we want to do and eat. For us, it was like travelling with a bunch of foodies, discovering new places together, researching on our phones together and bonding with the locals together, it was the best!
P.S. Other bars and restaurants that we may have missed:
For meat grills
Cuebebar
Andron
Antonio
Bars
For the record, vinyl bar
Miguel's
Cantares
Petisco
Gin Joint at Verandah
El Patron
Cajy Bar
Mafia Cocktail
Joseph's Bar
Others
Terry's
Montego Bay
Southern Deck
Danday's grill
Pisco by the beach
Kamala Bai
Cortalim Beef cutlet Poi at the circle
Cavatina
Fishka
Bhatti Village
Anand
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