From Thursday 3rd September, Waterside is doing Curry Night. This one's personal, so bear with me.
Back when I was properly cutting my teeth, I worked under Rick Stein - a man who taught me that seafood, treated with respect for where it came from, needs almost nothing done to it to be extraordinary. But it's what he did next that changed things for me. He sent me to Goa, to walk the same fishing villages and beach shack kitchens he'd filmed for his own TV series. I turned up expecting a holiday and got an education instead.
Mornings started with fish curry - not lunch or dinner fare, breakfast, eaten standing up by the water while the boats came in. Afternoons were spent with spice traders down by the docks, haggling in a language I didn't speak. Evenings belonged to grandmothers who cooked entirely from memory and refused, point blank, to write anything down.
Years later, life came full circle. Our second Head Chef at Riverside turned out to be a man called Ashley Goan himself, and the curries he cooked weren't from any book. They were his family's, the kind passed down at a kitchen table, not photographed for Instagram.
So when we built Curry Night at Waterside, there was only one way to do it: properly. From Thursday 3rd September, every Thursday, we're cooking a different trio of traditional Goan curries - one from the sea, one from the land, one from the garden - served with all the proper accompaniments and best enjoyed with something ice cold in hand.
It's not a curry night bolted onto a brasserie menu. It's a nod to Ashley, to Rick, and to Goa.
Launch Night Thursday 3rd September - Draft Menu
Goan Fish Curry - monkfish, kokum, coconut, red chilli
Goan Pork Vindaloo - vinegar, garlic, Kashmiri chilli, done the old way
Goan Vegetable Caldinho - seasonal vegetables, coconut milk, turmeric, mustard seed
Steamed rice, Goan poi bread, kachumber salad, mango pickle, poppadoms & coconut raita
© Genuine Restaurants Limited | Sam's Waterside
