Food Costs in Goa

omnii

i'm going to be living in Vagator.
Are there any places to eat for around $2 or less?
Like those restaurants that specialize in vegetarian fried foods etc.?
I have a kitchen with fridge and can also prepare my own meals.
Which is cheaper, eating out or stocking one's kitchen with dahl and rice and spices etc and preparing own meals? I'm on a low budget so simple fare would probably suite me best.

GoanCanuck

Vagator does not have any good Udupi(Vegetarian cuisine from South India) restaurants.

However, if you have a scooter with you then you can drive to Mapusa which is barely 3 miles away. The best vegetarian restaurant in Mapusa is Navtara and here you will be able to have a decent meal for less than $2.

Besides the traditional Udupi food, Navtara also has vegetarian Chinese and Vegetarian Tandoori dishes. They do not serve any non-veg food.

baba420

iam sure one can eat a meal with $2 per meal, self cooking is the best option if you plan to stay there for longer duration,
regards,
baba.

Kingfisher

Hi again, omnii.

As GoanCanuck mentioned, there are no true Udipi style restaurants in Vagator (that I'm aware of, anyway) and you probably will have to scoot around a bit to find what you need as Vagator is really mainly set up for tourists. I note from an earlier thread that you are on a disability pension so I hope this will not prevent you from hiring a scooter for your stay as this will make shopping and getting to favorite restaurants a lot easier. (long-term rental of gearless scooter around 3000rp/month)

Purchasing food and doing some of your own cooking is definitely the way to go for a long-term visitor. For instance, if you like seafood you can head for the Chapora dock at 5 in the afternoon and check out the prawns, fish, squid, etc and pick up veggies at the market on the way. A rice-cooker is also convenient to have and are quite reasonable in price even if you have to leave it when you leave. If you like good coffee, there is a shop in Mapusa (the Tea Corner) which has excellent beans which they grind to order. You will likely need to visit Mapusa on occasion to hit the ATM anyway, and while in town you can treat yourself to one of the Udipi-style restaurants -- the Navtara, as GC has mentioned, or several others -- the one I generally frequent when shopping is the Ashok which is just a hole-in-the-wall spot across from the market and popular with locals for meals and snacks.

One Vagator restaurant I could mention is the Mahalaxmi, which is directly on the beach at the end of the road leading to the beach. Food is not terrific, but it is cheap (if you forgo the beer) and the location is unbeatable as it was built before the restrictions on building close to the waterline went into effect. I'll attach a photo taken from the balcony which might dispel any illusions you might have about how 'pristine' the beach is these days as the plateau above the beach is a favorite parking place for tour buses and for a few hours a day is deluged with day-trippers

I note from your earlier thread that you have already arranged accommodation, presumably via the internet; in general, the internet is not a good way to get a fair deal. The price you mention (US$570) is very high (rp25,000+) and if you are concerned about finances, this is probably around double what you could expect if you looked around a bit. You should not really believe anything you read on websites e.g. you seem to expect a white sand beach(wrong, it's grey) and your place being a 'three minute walk' from beach (probably not) and do not have too high expectations for the kitchen and plumbing either, if it is a traditional Goan house. You also mention staying January-June -- you should also be aware that Goa gets increasingly hot after February and by April can be somewhat overwhelming. Most western tourists have left by then and the long-termers will have headed north to the hills. If your house has a flat, concrete roof with little shade, it will be like an oven; even tile, pitched-roof houses can get miserable. By mid-June, when the monsoon breaks is another story as well. You might get contrary opinions here from some Indian tourists who find a 3 or 4 day break in Goa a pleasure in any season, but remember, their perspective is that of a short-term visitor taking a break from work and probably a crowded, sweltering city, so Goa's exoticism, the seabreezes and cheap beer will almost always be worth the trip.


Not to discourage you, but suggest you don't make any commitment for accommodation beyond the first month before you get here. By February or so, the season already beginning to wind down and there will be many reasonable opportunities.

I split the year between Goa and the west coast of Canada and have found the optimum season for weather, and pretty well everything else here, to be late-October to end of March. September/October hot/buggy and sometimes wet. I haven't stayed beyond early April, but even that was uncomfortably hot, unless you have a sea breeze.

Probably more than you wanted to know, but hope this helps

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