Food Options in North Goa : Recommended by IMers

anton

Just waddled out of Sublime! Thanks all for the heads up! Good ingredients, deft technique and interesting accompaniments. Well priced too. Your reccos (and those of myriad other sites ) absolutely justified.

Is the following write-up still valid or have some restaurants vanished from the radar? TIA.

http://www.frommers.com/destinations...478010028.html

Bomras next on my list of must visits.

anton

Woke up in the morning with a heavy feeling in the gut: the servings at Sublime are enormous! Worrying a bit that Bormas may be too much to handle, and hoping that the fare will be lighter. The problem however came from a different direction. Rejoicing in the newfound liberty of the gearless scooter, I happened to pass, while wandering aimlessly:

Lila cafe

Floyds

German Bakery

Had the waterbuffalo ham croissant. Stomach was full, but my eyes still hungered! The croissants are amazing, probabaly steeped in sinful butter. Ordered the chicken liver pate version, all washed down with OJ, pot of tea and milky coffee. The OH had the chicken mayo version (which I had to taste!). This is at 8:30 am.

At 12, ate the steak at Floyd's: not the best in India, as claimed by another IM poster. That would be the Chateaubriande at Haroun's Place, Bangalore. Rumour has it that he supplies other cities with his cuts.

At 4, on the way back fom the flea market, saw the sign for the German Bakery : dived in for some cheesecake, followed by another large cuppa milky coffee.

By now, I'm really hoping that Bomras will be light fare. I need not have worried: the servings are obviously targeted at the chi chi crowd. Compared to Sublimes, the servings are miniscule. Still very good stuff. Had the pepper crusted beef, rare, with garlic beans. The OH had the miso pomfret. The appetiser was mediocre, though: crisp pork on a bed of pummelo and pomegaranate. Visions of the wonderful crisp pork I once had in Macau floated before my eyes: what arrived was a dry, overfried version of diced belly pork. Should have known better: you need a walk in oven to get the texture of the type of crisp pork found in SE Asia.

Sidebar: is the excellent Goa food scene intentionally being kept a secret? There isn't any recent discussion either in eGullet or Chowhound (or Team-BHP), while Bangalore gets so much space. I would kill to have a Sublime set up in my town: probably live in the place, the pannacotta is so good! I guess more for you, when less is tracked down and scoffed by us out of towners! If more people knew, Goa would be a place worth visiting for the international food alone, like Paris, Rome, Hongkong and Tokyo. I asked many friends, expat and local, for good international cuisine in Goa, and only got curry reccos. You really should spread the good word: may just bring back the old tourist flow. Not that I could tell the difference, if it happened: the fleamarket footfall impressed me no end!

evilpoodle

Didn't quite work the same way for me the last time I went to the German Bakery, unfortunately. The place was flyblown and grubby, there were too many yuppies with laptops, and the cake was made of cardboard.

GxMx

Evil Poodle is right, these yuppies with their laptops and Iphones is a real menace!

anton

Ha!Ha!

From my laptop at the airport, waiting for the 2 pm flight to BLR.

All good, if you miss the cheesecake once available at Haroun's: a bit like the NYC cheesecake. Nowadays, the gelatin loaded stuff that passes for it is all that you can get, even at H's.

The missus gave me a nudge when she saw the seating at German Bakery: why would you want to recline hoizontal while snacking at a Danish?

Yo' right about the grotty environs of the place: there were flecks of material on the cake that sure wasn't oven related!

Made up for everything by having lunch the next day at Lila, with the mango cheesecake: still not the rich, cream cheese version I was hankering after, but light and CLEAN!

So is it the yuppies or the hippies that we are uneasy about then? Before you know it, the Russians will be coming in numbers. Egypt's already overrun!

Gametotravel

@GxMx; from Ron Jeremy to Cumbum? I think cumbum in tamil means a bow!

evilpoodle

Tell me about it. It's like restaurateurs all over India have come up with a secret conspiracy to only serve in the name of cheesecake the garbage that feels like it's made exclusively of icing. I find this is particularly true of places that have "blueberry cheesecake" on the menu. Back in the day places like Cafe Churchill in Bombay used to do a lovely authentic cheesecake, with segments of orange on top. Now you're hard pressed to get real cheesecake outside of the five star hotels and a handful of places like the Indigo Deli and Theobroma (speaking of Bombay again).

Sorry to go off topic.

Among the great desserts I've had in Goa has been the dessert platter at La Fenice (already mentioned on this thread, I think) in Calangute, which includes pannacotta, bitter chocolate and other goodies.

anton

You didn't! La Fenice was on my list (a very crumpled sheet of paper in my pocket! ) but never got to go. After Lila's, began to feel I was going to burst. Mebbe next time...

Was trying to do the Goa version of this :

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=97435

There's adventure tourism, disaster tourism, and then there's food tourism. Never got hafway through my list: think it was the butter that did me in. Chinese food is light: Western isn't.

Cafe Churchill? Knda dates you, doesn't it? Well you got good company: I still remember running down in my shorts to buy Polson's for my Mom and gaping at the Parsi boys tucking into the bread and butter pudding at the Olympia after their cycling workout. Also, can't remember the name, but there was a very good place on the Marine Drive, serving Pineapple and Banana Trifle. Drool!

Groan, never got to try out the puddin' joint mentioned in one of the threads either. When it becomes unbearable and I need my dessert fix, I end up rolling my own. I even did my own 123 cheesecake:

http://www.nigella.com/recipe/recipe...aspx?rid=20437

Buttercream icing has a longer shelf life than fresh cream: thus the flourescent disasters populating the deli shelves. I had the "blueberry" cheesecake at Britto's on Monday afternoon Happily, a passable effort!

anton

My thanks to the OP and the other IMers who posted information here.

I had a great time while in Goa. An accidental reading of a few threads woke me up to a possibility of eating good Western nosh while on holiday here! On hindsight, that was a logical conclusion, given the high concentration of ex-pats, especially the long termers. A market obviously exists.

Some of the places would definitely make a customer hankering after familiar food happy: Californian at Sublime is well executed. Others like the Tea Room at St Anthony's Chapel was not: nothing like the cream teas I used to enjoy in the Kent countryside. Word to the owner: go easy on the baking powder in the scones!

Next trip is to a foodies paradise: Lucknow. Nihari Khulcha here I come!

evilpoodle

Ah well. Churchill was quite the institution, wasn't it? (Still is to some extent, I suppose, if it's "continental" comfort food you're after.)

Speaking of cheesecake - had a good old-fashioned baked one at Amici in Delhi earlier today.

Back to the Goa recommendations - Double Dutch Cafe in Arambol is an old favourite. Excellent breakfasts - variety of breads - and desserts and lots more.

GxMx

really? i didnt know that!

shashank.aggarwal

Funky Art Cafe in Arambol, try their desser "Hello to the Queen".

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Travelogue - Around India

evilpoodle

Don't think I've ever seen that one. Where in Arambol is it?

shashank.aggarwal

Do you know Totem ? Its just behind that, you have walk through all those cottages to reach it.

nomad4ever

I want to recommend also the beach shack O'Manuel'O in South Anjuna, right next to Curlies. Great food for affordable prices, I love especially the Shahi Paneer there, the best I tried so far in Goa. Costs Rs 80.

Just watch out for the beer prices, as they are not stated in the menu. First time I ordered a small Kingfisher, they charged me Rs 50, so I now only eat there and drink my beer elsewhere.

Besides that small lapse, the staff is really friendly and they have 2 or 3 newspapers every day for their guests to read. I wish more restaurants would offer that.