I usually travel to Goa when I crave for some good Goan food. Not many know that there is more to Goan food apart from Goan fish curry rice or Goan prawn curry rice. The Chancery Pavilion invited Chef Martina Fernandes from Goa for a 10 day festival at 'Itaca'. Chef Martina is self leant chef and masters Goan cuisine. She is usually invited by different cities to conduct Goan festivals. She is very passionate about her cooking and takes minimal help in the kitchen as she believes in providing authentic Goan taste to her customers.
The lobby of the restaurant shows the way to reach Ithaca with sign boards having names of the places from Goa.
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| Ithaca |
The entire restaurant has Goan theme and feel of Goa. As I sipped on some Kokum juice, a live singer was playing some good goan music, konkani songs, etc adding to the Goa feel.
On a rainy Sunday night, I planned to have some good food to cheer my weekend. I haven't heard good about the food at the hotel so I was initially hesitant, like most of us. But I gave this place a try and review it myself rather than going by other's review. What better than some Goan food in Bangalore? I started my meal with hot crab soup. It had full flavors with crab meat, delicious till the last spoon. I wouldn't anything more than this soup on a rainy night. After this, I had some starters, veg croquettes, fish tikka, paneer karawali and chicken. I liked the veg croquettes with tomato ketchup. I would have preferred fish tikka with a mayo dip or mint dip. I do not have a pic of fish tikka.
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| Crab soup |
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| Chicken |
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| Paneer karawali |
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| Veg croquettes |
Then I had some salad's. I was in a fix to choose from various salad's on display. I had chicken and beetroot salad, creamy ranch with potato and fish, egg platter, mugachi salad, seafood salad, paneer tikka chaat, Cucumber - low calorie dip, set curd just to name a few. I liked panner, cucumber and egg platter more.
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| Creamy ranch with potato and fish |
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| Egg platter |
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| Fish salad, I don't remember the name |
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| Seafood salad |
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| Paneer tikka chaat |
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| Cucumber - low calorie dip |
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| Set curd |
They have a live counter for ross omelette with pav and mini pizza. Ross omelette is a street food of Goa which has meat spread on an omelette with pav.
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| Ross Omelette with pav |
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| Veg mini pizza |
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| Non veg mini pizza |
For main course, I had Goan rice, Kaju pulav, Chicken vindaloo, Mutton xacuti, Fish curry and Prawn curry. Apologies that I forgot the Goan names of the curry. Prawn curry was spice and burst of flavors on my tongue, fish curry was my favorite and mild, mutton curry had coconut flavors while chicken curry had no aloo in it. I had no space in my tummy to try the veg so I skipped it.
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| Goan rice |
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| Kaju pulav |
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| Fish curry |
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| Mutton xacuti |
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| Chicken Vindaloo |
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| Prawn curry |
It was time for desserts, a good spread of desserts which had Goan desserts too. I had no idea of Goan desserts and Chef Martina introduced me to the desserts and explained me every dessert and the ingredients which went in it. Portuguese custard pie, Dosh, Strawberry delight, Dodol, Boleno, Bebinca, Alle belle were few Goan desserts among the rest which had baked yogurt, milk cake, badam burfi, rajbhog, rice kheer with goan rice and jaggery. The desserts sound really different and they tasted different too. It was the first time I tried it and pretty much liked them too.
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| Portuguese custard pie |
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| Strawberry delight |
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| Dodol |
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| Boleno |
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| Bebinca |
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| Dosh |
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| Alle belle |
The variety in veg is good and all those who think Goan food is about non veg then they would be proved wrong. Overall, it was a Goan experience in Bangalore and all those who love Goan food shouldn't miss this festival at The Chancery Pavilion with Chef Martina. It is available for dinner only and is priced at Rs. 999+taxes.
