Kamlabai Sea Food Restaurant — Restaurant in Goa

Kamlabai Sea Food Restaurant has been through a long change in nature with period of time. I still remember a small restaurant with dull lighting and Kadappa tiles as flooring, I was in my early teenage and we as a family used to hangout on weekends to give some rest to my mother from cooking. It all started as a restaurant with cheap price and good food. It used to fascinate me that there was a room with one glass covering full of butterflies and different creature and it always used to be full during Football and Cricket matches. Sometimes we feel that its not just a restaurant but an emotion and we have seen it grow from small town restaurant to one of the best restaurant in entire North Goa. Talking about food, it has always served some authentic taste of goa origin. I would recommend some sea foods like, Whole fish thali, Chonak Fry, Prawns curry, King Fish Rava fry etc. I highly recommend you to taste Chicken tikka masala, which is the best I have ever eaten in goa. Butter Chicken and Naan is best best Non sea food option available there. Now that it has developed as a fancy and authentic restaurant I would recommend to go with your family. It also serves Alcoholic drinks. environment there is very homely and dim lighted. If you are a vegetarian then there are many options available. To be honest, I haven't tried many veg options but Veg crispy and Paneer based North Indian Dishes are also there which taste good on the platter. One time I was standing near Mapusa market and waiting for someone, that time one person, assumingly a tourist, came near me and asked in Hindi 'where is Kamlabai restaurant?' and i was amazed to see how famous it was(I know its most popular choice on internet). I would rate this restaurant as- Environment -7/10 Food -9/10 Service -7/10 Family...

We used to visit this place before but we've been away for some months. Having returned this year (Oct 2025) we thought we'd go there for a thali today. It looks like a lot of changes going on.. the facade has been changed, an AC room is being set up and various other changes ongoing... which makes me wonder whether it has been sold.

The food was a disappointment and overly expensive for what's on offer. The chonak thali was Rs. 360 (compared with Rs. 300 at another well known restaurant on the Calangute road). The fish was a normal size but not a good cut, with black bits on the side which was uneatable.. so, you get half a fish. My prawns thali had only 3 prawns, but a good enough size. However, they seemed too oily. One prawn seemed too soft and squishy with liquid inside the head.

Their vatis are the smallest I've ever seen on any thali ! The accompaniments of kismur, sol kadi and sweet dish were good. However, the main meal consists of no more than one and half tablespoon of cabbage, the curry was a pretty small bowl of fish curry which contained more of an unpalatable mess of fish bones and soft bits of fish than there was gravy! The tisreo was tasty but a miserly quantity.

Compared with the huge and delicious spread at the Parra restaurant a couple of days ago for just Rs. 300, which even included 4 large prawns, crab and mixed salad and normal sized vatis, I have to say that the current Kamlabai's restaurant is overly expensive for a mediocre fish thali. We were so underwhelmed that I didn't even take any photos, which I do everywhere!

Sadly, it's one place we will not...

Went there after hearing a lot about their famous fish thali, but the overall experience was extremely disappointing. The thali was just average (have had much better ones in Goa) and the chicken dishes a few of us ordered were below average (lots of artificial coloring left on fingers), but the biggest concern was the attitude of the staff and the owner/person at the counter. First they arranged for extremely tight seating for our reasonably big group, then on our request, the waiter rearranged it to be slightly better. However the owner/person at the counter didn't like this and ordered the waiter to arrange it back the way it was. Of course, this was conveyed to us in a very rude manner, pretty much with a 'take it or leave it attitude'. Disappointing to see that, in a business, where good service and customer friendly attitude is so important, none of that was visible at this place. Certainly will not be returning nor recommending to others. The only reason to visit would be if one wants a simple fish thali at low cost in a ultra basic ambience and if one doesn't care about...