Until February 2017, and during his first research trip to Goa, chef Hussain Shahzad was still looking at menus at small Goan restaurants, thinking they were shady, and referring to corn dangar — a GSB-style spiced corn fritter — as corn "danger". The dish is intrinsic to the culinary ethos of the Goud Saraswat Brahmin community, better known as GSBs. And a year later, chef Hussain has been inducted into the cuisine and culture well enough to pull off a two-week long festival taking place at O Pedro as part of the restaurant’s first anniversary celebrations.

But when he met home chef Vaishali Joshi all those months ago in Vasco, it wasn’t so much for
hands-on training as it was for a few tips on where to eat. "When we were opening the restaurant, we were trying to research every aspect of the state because we didn’t want to portray the whimsical Goa or the Goa that people already knew of. I was aware that the repertoire of Goan vegetarian food wasn’t great in our minds, but I didn’t know that a Saraswat community existed. And then, Vaishali aunty was kind enough to invite us into her home where I found her with this immaculate black board which had names of dishes written all over, and cooks with aprons and stuff. I was completely taken aback because I had landed up casually in my shorts," he shares.