#blahvsfood goes to Clube Nacional

It’s crazy that in my 30 plus visits to Goa, I had never visited Clube Nacional. Thanks to my friend Fernando, I have finally rectified my error and now I plan to make up for lost time.

Goa’s social clubs are a relic from the past, very different from the Gymkhana clubs in other cities. They were truly community clubs, places where people gathered and met and loved and fought. Today the Clube Nacional is dilapidated and falling apart, embroiled in a legal dispute. But when you climb up the steps, past the dilapidated room, you step into a magical room where large windows overlook large houses and tiles sloping roofs, where time stops while the city moves. 

There Napoleon will serve you food that you never find in restaurants. Not just the most amazing Rissois but all kinds of forgotten treats. Everything is great but the one thing I will insist you try is the salted beef tongue sandwich in undo bread. You’ll find roast tongue in many places but such perfect salted tongue is rare anywhere in the world, not just in Goa. 

And the bread.. oh the bread! Better than the famous poee, it’s like a Goan sourdough. Crusty outside but soft and chewy inside it’s like no other bread in the country. All it needs is some butter and some choris or salted tongue inside and you’re in a Goa that is perfect and magical and special and deserves to stay unchanged forever.