During recent visit, I visited 'The Fisherman's Wharf' and supposedly I was supposed to know about such place :). It seems 'The Fisherman's Wharf' is a chain of restaurants in different cities of India which are known for serving food sea-food. Now all that knowledge I gained when I was on my way to the restaurant and certainly it was all about perceived brand of 'The Fisherman's Wharf'. In this post, I will share my viewpoint about food quality, variety, service, drinks, ambience, pricing etc and most of it on the basis of my personal first-hand experience. After coming back I also researched a bit about it and will also break some myths/hypes about the place.
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Ok so let's start with ambience and setup, as that's you encounter when entering into the space. It certainly has a special vibe, as the restaurant is in a typical goa style house with slanted roof and I loved the room where they have kept lot of old styled agricultural equipments from the past. Lot of them were made up of bamboo and some of the brass utensils etc. Somehow I clicked only one photograph at 'The Fisherman's Wharf' in Panjim but you can see a lot more photographs on Google to get a feel about the place.
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As we grabbed our seats, we were offered the drinks menu with some showcasing of Goa wines. Interestingly none of us ordered wine. So in first order, lot of Margarita's were ordered along with some beers and scotch.
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Now it was time to order snacks. They bring fish and crabs of different size & type to you. You are supposed to chose from the offered options of fresh fish etc and order how you want to get them prepared. Some of us who wanted to have sea-food, especially because we were in Goa, ordered 2 kinds of fish and ordered 3 kinds of different fish snacks. Also ordered some prawn snacks. Some of us ordered Chicken and other vegetarian snacks.
In the meantime, our table had discussion about artisan water. This was first time I learnt about the drinking water industry a little more than Bisleris and Kinleys of the world. It was quite insightful and suddenly I reached my village where we may have much better stream water which can be branded and sold as some expensive water :). Anyways, I didn't do anything about that thought.
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Soon food arrived on our tables and most of the stuff was pretty good but was it out of the world or something which I never had - no. Especially about seafood - the food was good but not very special which will take me back to 'The Fisherman's Wharf' only. btw, I can suggest some crazy places to have seafood. I recall one place on Candolim and the other in Baga. Not very fancy places but pretty good and flavourful food, which has a recall value in my head as 'Goan Seafood'. May be there is a bias because those were some of the first places I visited to have seafood in Goa.
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The staff was reasonably good at 'The Fisherman's Wharf' . Now I have a parameter to evaluate service. Usually servers are super excited when you have place an order or you have just arrived. Server interest is in you throughout but it goes down with time you spend at a place. That's exactly what happened with us. We have had some hukkahs and usually those need some assistance time to time. It was hard for us to get hold of the expert who could help us. When I say all this, I don't mean to say it was a bad experience fro service standpoint but I will not say it was an impressive experience. It was what it's needed and in some cases, may be little better Consistency in service throughout is important.
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Price-wise 'The Fisherman's Wharf' is good and worth the money you spend at this place. I didn't pay anything for this dinner as it was planned by my office but I had a look at the menu and prices looked reasonable for food as well as drinks.
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Overall it was a good experience but will I feel like going to 'The Fisherman's Wharf' if they open an outlet in Delhi? - may be not. or maybe once with Vibha to try it again :).
If you have been to 'The Fisherman's Wharf' in Goa or any other city in India, please share in comments section about your experience.
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