It is a quintessential Goan eatery. In the heart of South Bombay, right on the main road in the busy business district of Flora Fountain. If you are driving to it, you could very easily miss it, hidden as it is behind all the road side stalls, selling cheap wares. I suggest it would be best to keep an eye on the opposite side of the road and stop when you come to the Bombay University and get off. And then you dart in, like I did, dodging the pedestrians, leaving heat and dust and the cacophony of traffic behind.

It's a charming place. With an overhead loft, very much like a large drawing room of a Portuguese casa converted into a public diner. Gleaming copper tableware adds to the warmth, the polished wooden furniture and long ochre benches made from mud and lime complete the cheery picture. A slice of Goa no doubt, with portraits of old families  ,hanging on the walls at various intervals, giving the place the Portuguese touch.

I am greeted by Meldan D'Cunha, one of the two proprietors of Soul Fry. No sooner do I get seated we begin discussing Goan food, most of which I have  had in Goa, cooked by one of the best men in the field, Chef Rego of the Taj Aguada.

One by one, assorted dishes find their way to our table. Calamari Ambotic, Stuffed Crab, Fish Green Chilly Garlic, Prawns Xacuti, Pomfret Reshaad Fry, Sungta Maria, Tambde Kombdi, Machhi Caldine, Denji Curry, and even more. Hmmm… delicious stuff, but it left me dissatisfied.  It's all very well when one has to indulge in a tasting session, but the feeling is not so nice at the end of it, kind of makes you feel short changed! Eating one teaspoon of this and one table spoon of that! Though what I did eat in sufficient quantity was the Tava Prawn rice, just how I like it, not over powered by masalas, yet every bit as tasty.

Goan food I must say, has very strong colouring. Dark red, fiery orange, bright yellow, chutney green. I have learnt now to recognize dishes by their colour. Cafreal is green, Caldine yellow, Xacuti dark brown and Goan Curry is orange. But red has the most variety, Ambotic, Rechaad, Balchao, Vindaloo. coconut milk and vinegar are important ingredients of this cuisine. And the various masalas lend themselves best to seafood in my opinion Prawn, Calamari, Crab, Clams, Fish. In any case 95 % of the people who patronize this restaurant are non vegetarians, of which most are sea-fooditarians! But that does not mean there is no vegetable fare on the menu, there is, and to be fair, I did try the veg etarian thali, which was not bad at all. However the fish, prawn and crab thalis are better. Sorry vegetarians!

The menu at Soul Fry Casa is a time tested one. They serve exactly the same food they have been serving at their other restaurant Soul Fry, in Bandra. That one's been in the business since 10 years and is popular with a whole lot of folks in the film fraternity and the modelling world. Bipasha Basu and John Abraham are absolute regulars there, since even before they got famous. And Madhur Bhandarkar and Shankar Mahadevan dine there very often too.

But coming back to the casa at South Bombay, it was lunch time and I was visiting it for the first time since its opening night a few months ago.  The informality of the place is in keeping with the home style cooking which is its mainstay. Yes, most of the recipes are what Meldan sourced from his mother, grand mother and mother-in-law. There are no false attempts to jazz up the looks of the food, it's the kind which doesn't make the camera fall in love with it, but it sure warms the tummy.

Meldan knows all there is to know about cooking. He has been a chef long enough. Nine years with The Oberoi, and then two on the Carnival Cruise Line of U.S.A. He belongs to Bombay's Dadar Catering College alumni. He met A.D. Singh of Olive, struck a partnership with him and got into his first joint venture, catering to
the Otter's Club. Years later, till today, the two are partners and make a successful team.

The unpretentious atmosphere of this restaurant gets even better at night time. There is a live band every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday and Karaoke evenings on Sundays and Tuesdays. Thursdays you are serenaded at your table, with good, old Goan love songs and Indian classics too, bringing the past alive. It's understandable why Parsis make a large part of the Soul Fry clientele. Formerly, they used to have Goan cooks at home, they love music and it doesn't take them long to take to the dance floor. Which is any space you can find between tables.

A casa would not be complete without it's bar corner and 'Liquid Diet' like their menu states, is sufficient to transport you to Casa's hometown, Goa. They have all the spirits here, white, and dark, beer, wine and whiskey. Soul Fry was lucky in that respect, when it opened its doors about six months ago, it had all it's licences already in place. Formerly the same space housed a dance bar called Café Paris, tres chic, oui?

Soul Fry Casa
Currimjie Building,
M.G. Road,
Opp Bombay University,
Fort,
Bombay 400023