Goa diaries -- Away from the beaten path

A 500 year old church in Serrao

To what lengths would you go to search for the perfect Chicken Cafreal. For motorcycle enthusiast, founder of biking group Indus Rider and writer, Arvind Prabhakar, it took him eight months across the sleepy islands of Goa such as Serrao, Vaxim and faraway from the tourist hordes to find the one.

Bardles

And in yet another vindication of the foodie's law -- the look of a place is inversely proportional to the yumminess of its food --- Bradles Bar and Restaurant ticked all the boxes in style. The fish melted in the mouth, the pork pulao had heavy shades of Portuguese daubed over it and the beef roast was simply phenomenal. The squid and mussels were simply divine. In other words a noisy bunch of 8 was reduced to a silent mass of munching jaws and grunts for nearly an hour. While Goan cuisine is heavily influenced by the Portuguese -- they only left in 1961 -- over recent years, it has been subjected to an assault of other cuisines, especially from North India where a substantial chunk of the tourists come from. Not to mention the European tourists who prefer their tandoori chicken (the redder the better) over the delicately flavored Goan cuisine. The other end of this culinary rainbow is the typical sandwiches, pasta beach shack fare whose quality is variable at best. For authentic Goan cuisine, you have to get either very lucky or know people who are interested in keeping its history intact. The sad part is that many of these hidden eating houses are morphing into drinking holes. For one, the economics is cheaper, as drinks cost a fraction of the meals that has to be cooked and secondly, demand for such authentic cuisine, especially in restaurants drops sharply as you get into interior Goa. (this place is a good one hour inland over a few ferry rides from the Baghas and the Calangutes) A friend was narrating a story on a great restaurant which he used to frequent during his internship days in

college had started serving alcohol when he took his wife there after a few years. "I cried," he said when the owner told him that they have stopped serving food for a while.  Even at Bardles, we were the only folks having lunch with the rest of the tables occupied by silent drinkers. These places need to be preserved for they are important reminders of the past. Arvind tells us that he usually brings riders to this place for meals and calls in advance so that the owner, Mr Francis can make the necessary preparations. Location: (on Divar island and a stone's throw away from Devaayaa Spa) More power to him and his kind! And what about the Chicken Cafreal. Lip-smacking fare, though at the risk of sounding slightly heretical, I thought it was a close second.