Take Home the Taste of Goa

If you haven't found your share of slippers and sarongs, and 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 "back from India" gifts. There's export quality bebinca (a rich, layered, dense pastry made of butter, egg yolk, and coconut) that has a long shelf life and make 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 mackerals soaked in red masala, which have to be fried once you get home) with clearly marked expiration dates; 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 sachets of tendlim (a pickled green vegetable). Chances are the storeowner will wrap it for you with a grin that acknowledges that you know a bit about Goa after all.