Seventy-two years is a long time--long enough, at any rate, to establish a restaurant that’s really very pleasant. Souza Lobo, on Calangute Beach, was set up in 1932--the 'Since 1932' motif is there on the waiter’s uniforms, on the menu cards, and on the restaurant’s signboard. Today, it’s run by John Jude Lobo, the great-grandson of the founder, and is definitely one of the nicest restaurants in and around Calangute. We discovered Souza Lobo while strolling along the beach and decided to give it a shot for dinner.At first glance, it seemed simply like a somewhat upmarket version of most Goan eateries: a ceiling of prettily woven coconut fibre, tables covered with red tablecloths, waiters in cheery orange shirts with a print of coconut trees, menu cards that look like they were printed in 1932, and the faint glimmer of moonlit surf a few yards down the beach. A little later, and we’d revised our opinion: Souza Lobo wasn’t just a pretty place.
The food, for one, was splendid. We had a lot of authentic Goan food while we stayed in Goa, and the best was at Souza Lobo. We ordered steamed rice, fish cafreal (very succulent fish smeared with a green paste--I think of coriander and spices, lightly cooked and served with crisp wedges of fried potatoes), and oyster xacuti, a dish with a beautifully creamy gravy of coconut milk. For afters, my husband had a fairly good apple pie with ice cream, while I settled for bebinca. Bebinca is a Goan sweet that’s made very painstakingly from pancakes. Each pancake is made of a batter of eggs, flour, sugar, and grated coconut--and then some half a dozen pancakes are piled one on top of the other and gently steamed. Not too sweet, and (as at Souza Lobo) usually very good.
We ate at Souza Lobo another evening, when we ordered pork sorpotel (a dish traditionally made with pieces of pork, pig’s liver, pig’s blood, and spices) and fish reichado, a grilled fish stuffed with a mixture of ground spice and Goan vinegar. Spicy, but good. On both days, our bill--including cola and a beer, main course and dessert--came to less than Rs500. Great value for money.
And the icing on the cake is the ambience--Souza Lobo was the only restaurant we visited in Goa that actually had live entertainment. On the first evening, there was a singer called Emmanuel, who admitted that his stock of Hindi and Konkani songs was limited, but that he could sing English stuff. He had a gorgeous voice and was fantastic with country and soft rock. The next time we dined at Souza Lobo, Emmanuel was missing, but there was a trio with guitar, trumpet, and drum who sang loads of Konkani songs and a few English tunes. They did a particularly good rendition of When the Saints Go Marching In.