Guwahati: A cafe in Goa that is owned by two home chefs belonging to Guwahati has been awarded the Best North-Eastern Cuisine in Goa at the Times Food & Nightlife Awards 2022.
The restaurant, Soul Chef Goa serves a variety of authentic northeastern cuisines.
Soul Chef Goa is run by Monalisa Baruah and Saurav Parashar, both from Guwahati.
They quit their corporate jobs in Mumbai and decided to pursue their love for food, art and music. They started the Soul Chef.
Saurav speaking about the Cafe said that they shifted to Goa in 2015 and started Soul Chef even though they had no idea about how to run a business.
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The outlet is located at Fontainhas in Panjim and is slowly but “steadily” making its presence felt by bringing the unique flavours of North East India to the sandy shores of Goa.
The owners said, “Our signatures are pork chops in bhut jolokia (ghost peppers) and Jaggery, pork ribs in black sesame, chorizo Momos are quickly becoming everyone’s favourite.”
He added that apart from their Shillong street-styled noodles, Assamese chicken curry, chicken/pork Fry with dry bamboo shoot, the fiery Naga pork/chicken Curry and boror/masor tenga are a few more items that are their signatures.
He added, “We are mostly a meat joint,(oink oink to be precise) but we do have few veg options like Mushrooms in Black Sesame, Cheesy Veg Momos, and the Boror Tenga, an Assamese delicacy while some more authentic North Eastern herbs and veg dishes are in the pipeline.”
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“Soul Chef Goa in Fontainhas is a tiny North Eastern cafe with a very casual seating arrangement. It’s more a homely kind of an atmosphere at Soul Chef, which also does a lot of takeaways”, he added.
Saurav added that they take a lot of effort and love to cook the food and ensure to use the best products that are available in the market.
“Our food is always prepared fresh and so it sometimes takes a bit of time during rush hours. But it is worth the wait”, he said.
Most of the ingredients used by Soul Chef are brought from Assam. The most important ingredients include fermented bamboo shoots, dry bamboo shoots, and bhut jolokia among others.
“We also serve organic black and green teas straight from the beautiful gardens of Assam. Our unique butterfly blue pea flower-infused green tea is a crowd-pleaser”, he added.
Saurav also added that the entire menu is “carefully crafted” by Monalisa and she also is the main chef of Soul Chef.