Bernardo’s

Bernardo was Chrys Fernandes’ father’s name. Photographs of four generations of the family greet you at Bernardo’s, unequivocally acclaimed to be Delhi’s best Goan food restaurant, tucked away in a corner at DLF’s Galleria complex in Gurgaon. When their website talks of ‘authentic home-cooked Goan food’ as against what Goa’s restaurants serve to appease tourists, you think it must be marketing gobbledegook. But the remarks by immigrant Goans in the visitor’s book convince you otherwise.

Chrys manages the restaurant (for a while he was the only waiter) and his wife Cres makes the food, insisting on not having professional chefs. The duo left comfortable jobs to start a pickle business that flopped six years later, and thus took to Goan food. They have had to shift four places in three years, but old customers come searching. “Only our journalist friends who thronged our place at the Mehar Chand Market in Delhi have ditched us!”

Shocked as they are at the sight of “Goan Momos” at Dilli Haat (momos in Konkani means breasts), don’t ask them for “Goan crabs”, for that leads to stories best left untold.

Five new things they are planning to introduce:
1) Arroz de camarao, or prawn pulao
2) Sausage pulao
3) Chicken and prawn soups with alphabet macaroni in them
4) Sannas – idli-like dish made of rice and coconut, ground in coconut water (because you can’t get Goan toddy in Delhi).
5) Beer and wine when they move to a bigger place.

Where do they get their raw stuff from?
1) Fish from the Lazeez food in Galleria, via the Ghazipur mandi.
2) Halal chicken from Lazeez in Galleria.
3) Pork from Pigpo in Jor Bagh.
4) Vinegar – from Goa, because it’s made of toddy and not acetic acid.
5) Sausages from Goa, for they are smoked.

Five Goan puddings they’d like to serve but are too time-consuming to make
1) Bebinca
2) Dodol, made of flour and jaggery
3) Bolina, a type of biscuit
4) Alebele – think pancakes stuffed with coconut and jaggery
5) Baath – a coconut cake

Their five top selling dishes
1) Prawn recheado – fried prawns stuffed with Goan spices
2) Vindalho de Porco – pork marinated overnight and cooked in Goan spices
3) Caril de Peixe – Goan fish curry cooked in spices and coconut milk
4) Xacuti de Galinha – Chicken prepared in a thick paste of roasted coconut and spices
5) Feijoada – Goan sausages cooked with dried rajma

[This article by me appeared in the November issue of Delhi City Limits along with Outlook magazine.]