By Nisha Ravi
I am not a lot of things.
But I am a lover of Goan food.
I am also a self-acclaimed food critic with a vicious imposter syndrome.
So if you do not resonate with the following, please know that, at times, I might agree with you too. Every time I need to pick out a new restaurant or bar, the first thing I do is go over the endless reviews on Zomato. And I always wondered how some of these reviewers mustered the confidence to publicly shame/ defame some restaurants, nary a worry about the consequences. I decided I would take every review with a pinch of salt. So when a ‘Subramaniam’ complained that the malai kofta at a Punjabi eatery was excessively creamy and lacked spice, I’d know better than to trust his 1 star review.
I ramble.
Bottomline is I’ve mustered the courage to do the same. So forgive me.
My friend and I decided to do our weekly meet up at Klaa, the brand new Goan restaurant that is nestled within the familiar and lovely building that once housed Green Theory. Every single internet presence refers to them as ‘the love child of chef Rhea Aaron, cricketer Varun Aaron and restaurateur Bikash Parikh’. I was quite excited because the idea of authentic Goan food in Bangalore sounded like a mini beachside escape. Bangalore is a city that births resto pubs and bars at godspeed, so it is also refreshing to watch food-forward joints becoming the new trend.
Decor-wise there isn’t much that could possibly go wrong. Green Theory was a cozy, exposed brick structure, well-ventilated and littered with green foliage. The Klaa team added to it with the Portuguese style tiles.
Chef Rhea has curated a set of dishes that are very special to her. There is a Mary’s beef fry which is her Mom’s peppery beef dish and then there is a Christine’s meatball curry which is an ode to her grandmom’s recipes. There are some staples like chorizo chilli fry, cafreals, xacutis and snacks like rissois, cutlets and just about everything you can expect out of a Goan restaurant.
We ordered the garlic poe to go with Mary’s beef roast and the chorizo chilli fry. The garlic poe was an instant hit. That familiar aerated texture was reminiscent of all the meals I have sopped up with it.
Mary's beef was good. But that’s all I will say about it. Was it the best ever? No. Have I had better? Easily and at multiple places. Were the better versions at half price? Heck yes and perhaps even lesser.
Chorizo chilli fry is one of my favourites in Goa. It’s my go-to bar order and the fresh pungency of the sausages with that irresistible heat is unmatched. Escobar (now Pablos) does a fabulous one.
I have tried eating chorizo outside of Goa at a few places and none have delivered. So it was not surprising that this one lacked as well. There were way too many onions masking that funky flavour out of the dish. I don’t know what else to say except that I was not going to finish that plate, come what may.
We decided to try the thousand layer potato from Chef Rhea’s special creation list. It’s a layered potato dish lined with recheado sauce and some miso edamame butter. Forgive me for expecting a glass dish with hearty looking potatoes that nearly melt in your mouth with that recheado masala puncturing the mealiness with a delightful kick. What came was a slab of what seemed deep fried layered potatoes that were hard to slice and really lacking in any flavour, recheado or otherwise. It was almost burnt I think and I know for sure I would have not ordered it if I knew it was of this texture. Was it baked? I couldn’t tell because it was so crisp and hard that an oven would perhaps never commit that error.
Our appetite was small so we skipped mains and headed straight for the desert. I was quite surprised to not see bebinca on the list. Not that I love bebinca but just assumed it would be there. That’s fine though, because serra dura was. And of course I ordered it. The best one I have had was at Noronha’s food truck. The viscosity and sweetness is just perfect!
Look, I know Klaa has positioned itself as a home style Goan restaurant offering a gourmet experience. That is confusing in my opinion. The best thing about home style food is that it is fuss-free and thus not-so-expensive. Serra dura is nothing but a pudding made with layers of whipped cream and crumbled Marie biscuit. Fairly straightforward. The Noronha’s one is like 50 or 70 bucks and this one is 250. That’s okay, rent in Bangalore is quite high and then the restaurant and location is of course premium. But then, with that in mind when you give me basic whipped cream and biscuits literally crushed by hand such that the chunks were still intact, with one edible flower on top of it, inside grandma’s ornate pudding cup — really does nothing to elevate the experience. Was it homestyle? Sure. Was it tasty in a rustic, homestyle kind of way? Not quite. It was too sweet. The cup was filled to the brim such that everything was spilling every time we went anywhere near it and the flower was really truly useless and did nothing to make that presentation go from Oh to Whoaa.
All in all, the meal just did not deliver. And I’ve gone back to believing it’s impossible to get authentic Goan food right outside of Goa. But let me tell you, my friend who is not so familiar with Goan food enjoyed it quite a bit. I guess not knowing how funky a chorizo can be, really helps enjoy the non-funky ones. So, I know she’ll go back and because she will, I might too.
Please Note: This is a personal view point and not a single source of truth. It's anyway a good idea to take everything you read on the internet with a pinch of salt.
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