Viva Goa ia a long-standing restaurant originally for locals as it is open all year round.
A few nights ago Veda (an English friend) and I ventured forth and this is our experience.
Both versions are true:
A quaint roadside bistro serving fine seafood, meats and a full bar.
A noisy trashed out hellhole serving rotten fish and rancid meat with a full bar of bad Indian hooch.
The service is excellent with the anticipatory staff catering to your every whim.
Desperate poverty stricken runners who after a nice tip will drop all other customers and ask you for a 12th time "another beer, Sir?”
The efficient staff takes your order after recommending some of the chef’s famous dishes.
The complete Idiot of a waiter who after 5 times still cant remember your order and insists on my need for the prawns that are probably 2 weeks old and stored in a refrigerator that has about 3 hours of power a day.
After several local micro-brew beers we settle on chili fry squid, vegetable makanwala, palak paneer, jeera rice, a butter nan and a garlic nan.
After 3 beers from a local distillery that most likely uses contaminated water and extensive worker urine we muster up the courage to order.
The open seating introduces us to several pleasant European travelers.
The open seating burdens us with 2 large British subjects who insist on filling us in on their love for soccer and themselves, one of them being his wife who is feigning complete deafness and I think we should do the same.
Then the food arrives...
The chili fry squid looks fabulous. Succulent, perfectly cooked squids in a dark, leafy sauce that tastes like a something indescribable. The veggie makanwala is a jumble of well-cooked onions, carrots, and green beans in a creamy tomato base with a hint of spice and slightly sweet complexion. The palak paneer is a fresh mix of ground spinach with a perfectly textured paneer, a slight hotness that is subtle yet expressive. The Jeera rice is cumin seeded, slightly fried rice with finely separated grains. The nans are perfectly cooked in an obviously traditional tandoor with a perfect crispness and a slightly doughy refrain. All together the symphony of tastes and sensations make we wish I was nowhere else on earth.
Thrown at us the dishes spill over on to the already filthy table, the still wet with typhoid water empty plates and utensils are also seemingly dropped from the sky. First up was the mysterious chili fry, which contains unknown leafs and onion peels and is so overcooked that I am happily sure there is nothing living in it. The Veggie whatever is itself a halloween movie with cooked to oblivion "things" that I must assume are vegetables, the decidedly scary oil has risen to the top and the bottom and middle also, in fact this dish would power a northern Californian’s bio-diesel vehicle for several months...The taste? Who knows as I am just trying to hold it down before I drown. And now to the palak paneer, green it is no doubt. Spinach? Good question. I am assuming it is. The paneer is a very well textured (lets say tough) cube that most likely was holding the door open just a few minutes ago. The jeera rice has many specks of cumin and other unknown ingredients which each grain in its separate world most likely from it being dropped on the floor and then swept up back onto the plate before arriving sheepishly onto our table. The nans arrived burnt on the edges as if cooked with butane lighter. Edible, yes I guess one could optimistically say that.
With the meal over, I venture into the kitchen to meet the chefs. They are a well-organized team of professionals with years of training and hygienic intentions. I thank them and bid them adieu fondly dreaming of my next visit.
With the meal endured I venture into the kitchen to see who is responsible for this nightmare. I find 6 guys in a fluorescently dimmed small cell of a non-ventilated pit of a disgusting room where they most likely sleep and live for months at a time. I look around gagging on the filth and look forward to what my stomach will be saying shortly. A last look at the rest rooms finds me doubled over in prayer. As I retched I noticed that yes, I was pointing towards Mecca.
