150 km for a rice plate... By Frederick Noronha
IT MUST have been about the most bizarre assignment in my freelance career of eight years. But guest-editor David Blamey's idea was alluring. He was giving me the chance to review -- without obligation to the restaurant -- a hole-in-the-wall and good value-for-money place I would have anyway gone to myself. Food critics -- a breed that hardly exists in Goa -- tend to look at those outlets rolling out the red carpet, and wanting some cheap publicity. Someone said there's no free meal? Anyway, this writer's main qualification is that he lacks the experience as a food critic.... So, to distant Canacona (pronounced Kaankon, on the local Konkani-speaking tongue) we went. It's at one extreme end of Goa, as any self-respecting traveller would know, and is where everyone heads after Anjuna got too noisy and Baga-Calangute-Candolim got overcrowded. It takes time to get there. The consolation is that its far faster to travel in slow Goa today than it was even just one generation ago. Knowing where express buses leave Panjim and Margao helps. If nothing works, just catch-up on pending reading material as you head down from North Goa. 'Hotel Mangalore' is by the roadside about a kilometre away from Canacona's main tiny town, Chaudi. The road in question is National Highway 17, which passes through villages and, in parts, gets abysmally narrow. Or quaintly so, depending on your perspective on the subject. It's close to Char Rasta (literally, Four Roads, the point where they meet) and is not to be confused with another restaurant of the same name, that lies closer to the petrol pump. Don't get taken in by the 'hotel' tag. In Indian English you don't need to have rooms on let to qualify you for this term. Even a tiny 'chai shop' (roadside tea stall) can, and often does, grandiloquently, call itself a 'hotel'. It simply means a restaurant. Even if it's a ram-shackled version of one. Mangalore is a coastal city under 400 kms further south, in the neighbouring Karnataka state. Like Goa, it shares a love for sea-food, fish-curries -- though with a rather distinct flavour, which would be certainly obvious to the local tongue. Such subtleties would be lost on someone from outside the region. Hotel Mangalore is a modest place, with a long menu, and worth-recommending dishes. It's hastily-scrawled board announces a 'deluxe fish c. rice' (the 'c' is for curry) at Rs 80, a semi-deluxe version for half that price, and a 'local' equivalent for one-fourth. Obviously chicken is its specialty. Many local businesses see this as propping up the local bars that proliferate all over in a Goa who's easy-on-liquor policy reflects its former Portuguese legacy. Of course, Canacona is also surrounded with fishing villages. It has the seashore and also rivers like the Galgibag and Talpona. Fish preparations are the pivot that hold the rice-curry staple, and fish can often be a conversation point here as elsewhere in Goa. This is the kind of place that locals eat at. But it probably has aspirations to attract the tourist thronging to nearby Palolem beach, some three kilometres away. The make-believe shack before the 'hotel' -- thatched coconut shacks are more a beachside reality -- perhaps reflects this dream. Liquor is served only outside, in the 'shack'. But it's food is surely good enough to lure a wider clientele. As we grew talking, the subject veered to Delhi bellies and Goa gastros... the unsettling impact of good food on a perfect holiday. Of course, in places like these food comes in warm -- if not hot -- and there's little cause for fear. Water is something else; but then is the environmentally-hazardous plastic bottle a real option? Besides, sea-food that's not properly cleaned -- almost every self-respecting Goan housewife or cook knows how to do this adequately -- needs to be treated with care. This place has nearly a dozen-and-half chicken dishes. One actually counted. Fish (prices not mentioned on menu, the local market for fish fluctuates like the stock-market... depending on the weather and tourist-fuelled demand) and prawn are over two dozen in number. Then there are veg dishes and rice items too, besides fruit juices. Of course, the food here is local with a coastal Manglorean slant. Don't expect the watered down, bland versions that are aimed primarily at the foreign tourists in more 'happening' places. "Eighty to 85 percent visitors are locals," says owner Valerian Viegas. He comes from a village near Mangalore, worked as a waiter in nearby Margao, and then launched this small place with "zero capital", his terms. "I didn't know to cook, but just saw others and learnt," he explains in the local lingo, Konkani. He can afford to spill out the beans; the food tastes good. We opted for the semi-delux meal... but got tempted and changed that order to the delux fish curry-rice midway. While working on three types of fish -- fried in 'rava' -- and curries garnished with what seem to be herbs to the British eye, there were chapaties and parathas to dip into. Viegas recommended a prawn dish with green masala. He offered to show us how Mangaloreans fry their fish, but as we animatedly exchanged views, the dish had been already served. It ended with a spoonful of 'baddixep' (aniseed/fennel) roasted warm and fresh. One's idea of a working lunch. It could have been much more elaborate, but this itself was filling.... Cost: Rs 156. Incidentally, Mangalorean packet-curries (in powder form) for fish or meat are often so tasty to the Goan tongue. One cookbook, written by a Mangalorean Christian called Isidore Coelho, taught the first steps of cooking to many Goan just-married women across generations.... Valerian spoke about the Bapat masala ("best for the Mangalorean style of pork"). This is a Goa which is suddenly seeing many more influences on it's already quaint East-West mix of flood. Globalisation might not be such a bad-word to mouth in such a context! -- Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa * India 832.2409490 BYTESFORALL www.bytesforall.org * GNU-LINUX http://linuxinindia.pitas.com Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Mobile +9822 122436 (Goa) * Saligao Goa India Writing with a difference ... on what makes *the * difference -- "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim ." E. W. Dijkstra ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ To unsubscribe from Goanews Send a mail message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: 'unsubscribe goanews'