Best Food Souvenirs from Goa

If you haven't found your share of slippers, sarongs, bags and bangles at Anjuna or the shack-shops near the main beaches, pay a visit to a local grocery. Look carefully, and you'll find some great stuff to take home as a reminder of your stay in Goa or to give away as unusual epicurean gifts. There's high-quality bebinca (a rich, layered, dense 16-layer cake made of butter, sugar, egg yolk, and coconut) that has a long shelf life, making for easy packing; feni (Goan liquor) in fancy bottles (though it smells the same as the stuff in the downmarket bottles), which you'd be well advised to transport only in your carry-on baggage; prawn balchao (in a red chilli sauce) and mackerel reicheado (pickled prawns and mackerel soaked in red masala, which have to be fried once you get home); a variety of dried and wet masalas (spice mixes) from cafreal (green masala) and vindaloo(hot red masala) to xacuti (a masala with coconut and ground spices), and packets of tendlim (a pickled gourd). Chances are the storeowner will wrap it for you with a grin to acknowledge that you know a bit about Goa after all.