Goan cuisine is genuinely distinctive — a Portuguese-influenced mix of seafood, coconut, and pork that exists nowhere else in India. The signature dishes to try:
- Fish curry rice — the everyday Goan meal, almost always mackerel, pomfret, or kingfish in a coconut-and-chilli gravy
- Vindaloo — the Portuguese "vinha d'alhos" (wine and garlic), here a fiery pork curry, quite different from the version served in British curry houses
- Sorpotel — slow-cooked pork and liver, best eaten the day after it's made
- Xacuti — roasted-spice chicken curry with coconut
- Prawn balchão — prawns in a dark, sharp pickle-sauce
- Bebinca — a layered coconut-and-egg dessert
For a memorable meal, Martin's Corner in Betalbatim (south Goa) is the classic Goan home-cooking restaurant, famous since the 1980s. Vinayak in Assagao serves excellent fish thalis at local prices. Gunpowder in Assagao does south-Indian cooking in a garden setting. Every beach has shacks that appear at the start of the season (October) and disappear at the end (May) — food is usually grilled fish, beer, and cocktails, but the setting is half the point. Try to eat where you can see the catch.
Feni — the local cashew or coconut spirit — pairs with the food better than most things and is cheaper than beer.