A delicious mixture of Asian and Western cooking, Goan cuisine is a popular escape from the usual Indian diet of thali, masala dosa and curry. Long-term travellers flock here for the continental-style beach restaurants, with their pancakes, spaghetti, baked beans on toast, and chips. New arrivals, unaware of the pigs’ diet, tend to favour the traditional Goan pork 
sausages (chourisso) or classic pork dishes like vindaloo (marinated in toddy vinegar, and very spicy) and sorpatel (pig’s liver pickled in hot savoury sauce). Xacuti is a biting-hot coconut/ masala preparation of chicken or mutton, and the rich, layered bebinca is a traditional, very filling Goan sweet made of coconut and jaggery. The other main fare is, of course, seafood. The Arabian Sea lapping Goa’s coastline yields a variety of delicately flavoured fish and shellfish, including crab, oysters, king prawns, massive shark steaks and snapping-fresh lobsters.
Goa also has the cheapest beer in India as well as the famous feni, a raw, potent brew (usually distilled just once) made from either the cashew apple or the coconut palm. The local Goan wines are also popular and cheap, this being one of the few places in India where ‘wine’ shops actually sell wine, not just whisky. Most of Goa’s best restaurants are isolated from tourist centres. Authentic Goan food is nowhere better than at local homes but the Oberoi on Bogmalo beach prepares a number of local-style dishes found nowhere else. Either turn up for the superb buffet lunch (about Rs325 per head), or make a night of it—savouring grilled lobsteg : 
prawn baichao, and pomfret, followed by a visit to the poolside barbecue, lancing under the stars to romantic sounds of one of Goa’s live bands. Alternatively, try Martin’s Beach Corner at Caranzalem, a 3-km (2-mile) ride out of Panjim on the Dona Paula road. This is a fabulous place, famous for its fresh seafood prepared straight off the beach.
Coqueiro’s at Porvorim, 4 km (2 V2 miles) out of Panjim on the Mapusa road (hire motorbike-taxi from Patto bridge), used to be the place for top-notch Goan cuisine_ It still has a good atmosphere. O’Pescador at Dona Paula (8 km: 5 miles from Panjim is better, and serves primarily Polynesian cuisine. For delectable Indo-Chinese food Goenchin restaurant (tel 5718), near Mahalaxmi temple in Ponda serves generous.cheap meals (Rs150 per head). Try the Mandarin Fish, but go easy on the incandescent sauce. Another recommended Chinese restaurant is the Riverdeck near the Panjim jetty.
