There’s something dreamy about decks – a space where you can easily work your magic. And when it’s Christmas time, it’s air can be thick with all things magical.
The Astor Goa’s Deck 88 – a global coastal cuisine restaurant – in one of the sea-breeze-swept bylanes of Candolim in North Goa, is one such place.
Here, executive chef Divyanshi Patel and her team conjure up all sorts of gustatory experiences and emotions with their cheffy acuity and sheer culinary ingenuity.
Even as Patel tries to steer away from old fashioned and stodgy techniques of cooking, she is mindful of not stripping the dishes of the comfort factor. It’s the one thing that she believes cannot be divorced from a dish, whether gourmet or otherwise.
COMFORT IN FAMILIARITY
An element of familiarity is doggedly introduced in every dish by Patel, who says, “As long as it (a dish) has a familiar taste and is comforting, it unfailingly appeases the guest’s palate. If the flavours are too complicated, few people like it. Today, the mass likes common flavours.”
This is what she has discovered from The Astor Goa’s chef’s tables, an intensive culinary exercise to understand diners’ taste buds.
The 74 chef’s tables organised by the hotel, since its launch over a year back (in November, last year), have been revelatory in gauging the cuisine preference, which weighs towards familiarity and comfort food.
And so, the hotel rarely goes off the beaten culinary track, but be sure to be surprised by a Yoghurt Pani Puri Bomb – a bite-sized variant of the North Indian Gol Gappa – popping up on your menu-tasting table.
You have to stuff the crunchy puri (balls) into your mouth before it sops up all the explosive flavours of Mint & Tamarind Chutney, and turns soggy. It’ll whet your appetite for culinary adventure and leave you craving for more.
KITCHEN NORMS
Every visually appealing gourmet dish of Deck 88 arrives at your table after passing muster of chefs in the kitchen. Patel has put a rule in place at the restaurant to ensure her team of chefs never go wrong on taste.
It’s something she’s carried with her from her stint in the island nation of Malta in the Southern Europe.
“We have a bell system, where every 45-minute, when the alarm goes off, all the chefs have to drink a glass of water. This is done to cleanse their palate, which can get confused after tasting different dishes they prepare through the day,” says Patel, who’s passion for coastal cuisine and fresh ingredients took root in Malta.
"This ensures every time they are plating a dish, they taste it properly if their palate is clean,” she adds.
Most of her kitchen etiquette, which has been introduced in The Astor Goa, are imports from the European island nation. She’s a stickler for an ingredient checklist to maintain consistency of every dish.
Most of her kitchen etiquette, which has been introduced in The Astor Goa, are imports from the European island nation. She’s a stickler for an ingredient checklist to maintain consistency of every dish.
“I run my kitchen how it is done in Europe,” she injects.
Thus, taste panels have become a norm at this global coastal cuisine fine-dine eatery. At Deck 88, it’s the servers or stewards who constitute the taste panel. They memorise the flavours, textures and other characteristics of the dish-of-the-day when they savour it before they serve the guests.
This way, when they are explaining an item on the menu, it comes from their personal experience of it. Another practice that’s gained popularity at the hotel is the cook-off, which always succeeds in inventing a dish that finds a place in the menu.
Another practice that’s gained popularity at the hotel is the cook-off, which always succeeds in inventing a dish that finds a place in the menu.
INVENTIVE STREAK
One of dishes to come out of this stiffly fought culinary contest is the Soya-Tofu Kheema, which is now a part of menu-tasting fare. This dish is a vegetarian doppelganger of Mutton Kheema with its spicy and sharp flavours, aptly paired with Goan bread, poie.
Served on a rectangular paper boat with half a slice of poie, the juicy Soya-Tofu Kheema can be packed into the pocket of the poie and chomped away with restrained greed.
This second course of the menu-tasting is just the beginning of an international gustatory journey, which takes you to the shores touched by Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, in his quest to discover India.
The next item to make its way to your table is the Fish Nirvana, served in an earthenware bowl.
This Kerala-inspired curry – which brilliantly blends raw mango, fresh coconut milk and spices, is then sprinkled with golden-hued Podi dust (chat masala of South India) – on a marvellously fluffy and lacy appam (rice pancake) is one of the sensory pleasures that make life worthwhile.
Patel decided to tread on the wild side when she chose the local fish – chonak – for the fish curry, but came out victorious by hitting perfect notes. Chonak, which soaks up citrus flavour beautifully, blended equally well with the mild and coconutty Kerala curry flavours.
For vegetarians, the appam was married to Kerala Paneer Curry. The dish that followed Fish Nirvana was a culinary accident that happens often in Deck 88’s kitchen.
This happy gastronomical collision took place on a balmy evening at the restaurant, when one of its staff was polishing off Andhra Vegetable Poriyal (curry) with fryums (fried chips) and Pineapple Pachadi (South Indian pineapple raita).
And lo, a dish called Papad Tart was born. This ritzy small-bite uses a bowl-shaped Papad Tart as the tart base and fills it with a scoop of Andhra Vegetable Poriyal, and over it goes the Pineapple Pachadi, and finally garnished with a pickled onion.
This clever savoury preparation sits on a bed of uncooked lentil to hold it and has to be carefully popped into your mouth before it sags and losses its crispiness.
The fragrant-aromatic Sri Lankan spices – Marathi moggu, stone flower, pungent black cardamom and others – evoke the fuzzy homely feeling as you dig into it.
DREAMS ARE MADE OF THESE
Four courses done, but food craving is yet to be satiated. The Sri Lankan curry with Goa’s red rice is an apt follow-up to Papad Tart.
The fragrant-aromatic Sri Lankan spices – Marathi moggu, stone flower, pungent black cardamom and others – evoke the fuzzy homely feeling as you dig into it. Once again, coconut dominates all flavours and lends coastal notes to the dish.
And, as the gastronomical evening draws to a close, Patel floats to the menu-tasting table to inform excitedly how her kitchen smells heavenly with the aromas of Christmas goodies – Stollen bread, plum cakes, mixed fruit pie and others.
And, that’s how a delightfully dreamy evening at the Deck 88 of The Astor Goa ends as you walk away with the Christmas gift hamper with a resolve to revisit and feel its dreaminess all over again.