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From Goa, with food

The Radisson Hotel is celebrating a Goan Food Festival

SUMPTUOUS! Spices for the festival have been brought specially from Goa

You don't have to travel halfway across the country to experience the culinary magic of Goa. The Radisson Hotel in Delhi has organised an exciting Goan Food Festival that continues till May 28 at NYC Fun Café. The highlights of this festival include a Goan band that adds to the liveliness with its hummable music. To make the experience realistic, the décor has been carefully designed to match the mood.

The menu includes several Goan soups, starters, main courses and desserts apart from a live counter specialising in fish and chicken dishes. Not to forget the palm and cashew fenny, the native Goan drink, based on which cocktails are also available. A must-try according to Chef Judy Cardozo, who has specially come in for the festival, is the mixed seafood ambot tik, cooked with prawn, squid and mussels, and a dish called xacuti, which is available as both a vegetarian and a non-vegetarian dish. The former, consisting of kokum, is a little spicy and can be had with the sausage pulao, typical Goan rice. The xacuti, which is cooked with a special roasted masala, has milder flavour.

Born and brought up in Africa, Cardozo claims to have grown up eating Goan food. Calling herself "acook by instinct", she says the most popular dish is the seasonal mango coconut prawn curry, her personal favourite too. A generous portion of mango and prawns in a coconut curry, the dish is as scrumptious as it looks All the spices, such as toddy vinegar, balchow (dried prawns) and Goan chillies, are brought in directly from Goa.

Lavish spread

The buffet is quite a spread, consisting of traditional Goan seafood from lobsters, prawns and mussels to vegetarian delicacies.

Vegetarians can go for the cauliflower caldeen, cooked in coconut milk and a pumpkin preparation. The desserts include the popular Bebinca, a layered sweet made with coconut extract, sugar and maida and dodol, a dark brown dessert, made with coconut, jaggery and rice flour. Describing it as a labour of love, the chef explains Bebinca is made layer by layer with a lot of hard work, hence the name.

The lunch timings are from 12.30 to 2.45 p.m. and dinner, for which the menu is altered, is from 7 to 11. 45.

The buffet is priced at Rs.950 plus taxes per head.

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