I went to Goa for the last few days of 2014. It’s not my first time; I’ve been to Goa several times before because Priam’s mother has an ancestral home there. Each time I go, I really look forward to eating Goan food. Goan dishes involve a huge variety of seafood, many which are fried or prepared as curries. Goa used to be a Portuguese colony, so there is also a heavy Portuguese influence on Goan cuisine.
On our arrival, we ate dinner at home:
Pictured below are fried prawns and pomfret (a type of fish):
I’ve had fried prawns and pomfret in Mumbai too, but they are not as big or juicy as the ones in Goa.
Goan sausages (with potatoes and onions) taste very similar to chorizo:
Fish curry is a staple of Goan food:
I love Goan coconut curry of any kind (e.g., vegetarian, fish, shrimp, clams).
Goan bread called poee are nice and crusty on the outside, soft on the inside:
Poee has a lot of fiber and goes really well with curries and Goan sausages.
Pictured below was dinner on a different night at home:
The lobsters were very meaty, and the stuffed squids were incredibly delicious.
My Goan breakfasts typically look like this:
The plate below contained a variety of Christmas sweets that are common in Goa:
While I really like the colors of the food, I only liked eating the Goan crispy pastries called karanjis on the right. Karanjis are stuffed with dry coconut, chopped nuts, and sugar.
I like the traditional Goan desserts below even more:
In my opinion, dodol (dark brown sweet) is one of the best tasting Indian desserts, followed closely by bebinca (layered caramel-colored pudding). Dodol is made with coconut milk, coconut jaggery, and rice flour; it has a unique flavor that I can’t describe. Bebinca is made with coconut milk, sugar, flour, ghee, and egg yolk.
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For one of my lunches in North Goa, I visited a bungalow-turned-restaurant called Villa Blanche Bistro:
In North Goa, there are many bungalows that have been turned into restaurants, concept stores, and bookstores. These bungalow-turned-businesses generally have more character and charm than stores in boxy buildings.
The seating area was open air, which is quite common in Goa:
The food tasted very healthy (in a good way):
This dish was part of the daily special menu, and it consisted of a red snapper in mustard marination with soba noodles and cucumber towers.
Priam also ordered a cream cheese bagel with prosciutto and tomato:
The combination was pretty good, although I could make this myself.
The mushroom, eggplant, and goat cheese quiche was also on the special menu, and it tasted good but not the best I’ve had:
We tried the homemade baileys ice cream:
This ice cream also tasted good but not special.
Overall I liked the ambience of Villa Blanche Bistro, and it is supposedly famous for its Sunday brunch buffet so I’ll return to try that someday.
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Goa’s beaches are lined with shacks, and I have read that La Plage on Ashwem Beach is the most chic shack in Goa. We went to check it out:
Since we arrived around 4 pm (not lunch or dinner hours), La Plage was offering only drinks and desserts:
The drinks tasted okay. I had a pina colada, while I don’t remember what Priam had. The desserts were good but not mind-blowing:
These desserts were some sort of ice cream and a twist on creme brulee (the classic creme brulee tastes better).
Based on good reviews of La Plage online, perhaps the savory food is better than the drinks and desserts. I liked the ambience – very relaxing despite a curious little toddler constantly walking over to look at me and touch my leg.
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On one of the days, I headed to Panjim (Goa’s capital). By chance, I stumbled across a nice restaurant on a very narrow street:
I like the designs and colors for the restaurant’s signage:
In India, Indians call restaurants “hotels”. Therefore, Hotel Venite is a place to eat, not a place to sleep for the night.
I was given outdoor seating which could not fit more than two people:
I think only thin people can sit comfortably in those spots, but I really liked my views:
The artwork in the indoor dining room had warli (pronounced as “varli”) art along its walls:
Warli art is Indian tribal art. It is very distinctive in that the scenes are always drawn in white and human and animal bodies are drawn as two triangles joined at the tip.
I ate a baked stuffed mud crab from the daily special menu:
The stuffed crab tasted like crab cakes except better because I can taste more of the crab. The sides tasted ordinary. The menu for Hotel Venite is quite extensive, so I think it’s worth a repeat visit to check out other items.
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In a quest to buy supposedly the best cashews in the world, I went to Zantye’s in Panjim:
I enlisted the help of a family friend to cut through the huge crowd of customers. Although he is not a big guy by any means, he was able to get to the front easily (there was no line and I still haven’t mastered the art of preventing people from cutting in front of me).
The cashews with the skins still attached really are the best cashews I’ve ever had. They were incredibly crunchy (didn’t know they could be that crunchy), and the skin gave the usual cashew flavors new dimensions. Once in a while, I chewed on a cashew that tasted “earthy”.
The cashews without skins were not remarkable. There were masala cashews available too, but I didn’t buy them. I’ll purchase the cashews with skins every time I visit Goa from now on.
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To get to Curlie’s, a famous shack on Anjuna Beach known for its hippie past, we had to walk through Anjuna Market:
There were many direction posts for Curlie’s, so it was easy to find.
While the view of the beach and ambience was great, the service was incredibly slow.
This drink was good, but I don’t remember what’s in it.
This was basically an Indianized Chinese egg roll, and it tasted okay.
This calamari was okay too.
The combination of nutella and naan didn’t look very appealing, but actually it tasted good. Now that I have seen it, I can make this dish myself.
After Curlie’s, we walked along Anjuna Beach past many shacks, some amazingly held up by only a couple large sticks:
We didn’t have a full meal at Curlies, so we stopped by a random shack to eat some more:
My falafels were hard and dry, but otherwise my dish overall was okay:
I’d come back to Anjuna Beach just for its ambience.
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On New Year’s Eve, we celebrated on Baga Beach:
The fireworks were so close to me that I’m sure it’d be illegal in the US. At the same time, it’s the proximity to the fireworks that made the whole experience awesome.
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