On either side, was a sea of green with a few bungalows over yonder. The clouds were just about thinning, easing the overcast grey.
The road cut through the fi elds like a sharp arrow fi nding its way through a dense forest. The road was empty, as it has always been as far as I can remember, lasts for about 3 kilometres and is one of the prettiest stretches in Goa. Nerul junction to the Pilerne Panchayat
turning left to go to Saipem.
This is a road used as often as one can, especially as it
leads to the home of a very dear partner on my happiness
street – Lloyd. Since slices of Goa’s best journeys have
been shared with him, he has perhaps found his way into
these columns more than most others and that’s not his
fault, but mine. But such friendships have been cultivated
through food and music, across many days and nights.
On that overcast day, steps were retraced. Of course
once bachelor Lloyd is now basking in the contentment of
marriage with a young four-year-old Nathan, growing up
in a home full of fl avours. Nathan sees food and kitchens
everywhere with a granny who is one of the all time great
Goan cooks and the restaurant which keeps the owners,
Lloyd and his wife Narrisa busy. As Lloyd has grown, his
food has evolved into a zone which has leapfrogged him
from Saipem to a world far beyond. Where would you
fi nd very crispy sardines the big ones – and not the ones
you fi nd trapped in tins – burnt to perfection with a bed
of chopped salad on top. The crab with cheese stands out
due to the softness of both the crab and the cheese and the
course ends with fi lets of fi sh. But at times just let your
imagination wander and leave that menu behind. Prawns
with mustard, pork chops with apple sauce and fi sh any
which way you want can be done.
But Lloyd has a little secret which makes all this sound
so good – his cocktails. Honey-melon cocktail, the passion
fruit mixed cocktail, a sugarcane Brazilian rum cocktail
and a fresh fi g cocktail. But pick any fruit or veggie
and it will be made into a drink from tamarind to tomato.
Yours truly has this gut theory – to be great chef, be a
better bartender. And you are sorted.
Since this was about going down memory lane. I went
still further not to meet an old friend but eat what once
upon a time was a everyday or at least weekly staple.
Home cooked Bengali food. Mustard at Saligao is per –
haps the fi rst attempt at introducing Bengali cuisine to a
land which has seen a few Bengalis but very little Bengali
food. For this writer and a fellow Bengali journalist, this
was a “reconnect”. A little note on Bengali food or bongs
in general follows. They have dishes dedicated to different
– and dare I say – strange places and times. For instance
there is a very serious dish called “railway mutton
curry”. Or Dakbangla chicken, or robibarer mur gir jhol.
Allow me to explain.
While, the origins of railway mutton curry and dakbangla
chicken is known to serious Bengali food connoisseurs,
perhaps the best written description is in Journalist
and Chef Pritha Sen’s article on the subject which is reproduced
without her permission but with the fi rm knowledge
– having known Pritha – that food writing, like food
is only to be shared.
Pritha writes: “One such form of cuisine was that which
was developed by the entourage of cooks and bearers
who travelled with offi cers serving in the administrative,
forest and railway services in India in colonial times.
They cooked with whatever they carried with them or
was locally available at their place of halt, and thus was
born dishes like the Railway Mutton or Chicken Curry ,
the Railway Aloo curry, Dak Bungalow Mutton Curry,
Madras Club Qorma, Dak Bungalow or ‘dakbangla’ Roast
Chicken.
And the very same Pritha has curated the Bengali menu
at Mustard and some of this is served here. I settled
though for kosha mangsho which is thick spicy mutton
gravy best enjoyed with boneless mutton and fl uffy puris.
Oh and what is this robibarer murgir jhol, you may well
ask. Nothing complicated. Basically no bong can sleep
well on a Sunday without his chicken or mutton curry .
The chicken curry (murgir jhol) on a Sunday (Robibar) is
light with potatoes and eaten with huge amounts of rice
and fresh hot ghee, before a four hour siesta. That surely
rings a bell, doesn’t it?
