Counting Down to 90 - Week 1558 - Monstrosities and The Exploding Panjim Dining and Bar Scene

The Concept Explained

Counting Down to 90 - Week 1579

Why 1579

Bhavin's WritingsBhavin Jankharia

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This weekend I was attending a conference in Goa, in Dona Paula, in the Taj Cidade de Goa Horizon, which is the new building overshadowing the older Cidade de Goa, now called Taj Heritage. If you look at both from the beach, you realize, what a monstrosity the Horizon is. One hotel is designed by Charles Correa, and the other likely by someone using some generic design software without any imagination…you can easily guess which is which.

Since my daughter was with us, we decided to eschew the conference dinners and explore Panjim.

The last time we were in Goa in October 2024, I had written a piece titled “Third Thing, Fourth Thing, Two and Three Degrees of Separation and Privilege”.

Counting Down to 90 - Week 1578

Third Thing, Fourth Thing, Two and Three Degrees of Separation and Privilege

Bhavin's WritingsBhavin Jankharia

I found a separate note I had written about that trip, that I had not published, titled “Speakeasies”.

The first time I heard this term as a synonym for a dive-bar was with Madhav Nagarkar, a radiologist in Australia, who took us to a dive-bar in Sydney. It was a nondescript place that you wouldn't know existed, unless you knew it did and you had to knock on the door to be let in, but once in, the vibe was amazing, the cocktails brilliant and we were smashed on our way out. 

We found a similar speakeasy in Amherst when we went for my son's graduation. The outside was a library wall decor, which hid a door, which you had to find to enter the bar. My son had already known about it, but it was still a lot of fun.

We discovered one in Barcelona. We were walking around and around 8 PM found a barber shop that was still open. That didn't make sense, so we tried to figure out what was going on and it turned out to be a speakeasy and we had to guess the password (whiskey) to get in and the guy in front kept giving us prompts so we would get the password.

The drinks were nice and different and fun and they did fun things like stopping the music completely for a 1 minute silent pause, at which time everyone stopped talking as well.

It is tough with Mumbai's culture of "in-your face restaurants and bars" to find anything like this, but we found a lovely speakeasy in Panjim, called MTW - it is the office of Nao, the company behind the gin "Greater Than" - in the evening it becomes a speakeasy. You have to ring a bell to get in. It cannot accommodate more than 20 people at one time and the staff is superfriendly. The cocktails are nice, the toasties ok, but it was so much fun getting a lesson from a young knowledgeable person about the various gins they make, including some special versions that are not available for sale. The music was good, the vibe terrific and it was an hour and a half well spent.

This time we went to three different restaurants, on three different nights. All 3 were in and around Fontainhas, the Portuguese/Latin quarter, all within a 10-15 minutes car ride from the hotel. 

The first was “For the Record”, which is run by Bulund Shukla, who has migrated from Ahmedabad. It has vinyl records everywhere, some of which they play on a high end system - when we were there, we heard “Brothers in Arms” by Dire Straits and “The Wall” by Pink Floyd. 

The next night was at Petisco, run by Pranav. The basement had a live gig, which was nice, and not too loud as it often gets in Mumbai.

The last night was at Miguel’s, which is just near the Post Office, run by folks from Delhi, again with a very interesting vibe and amazing presentations, including a Jackson Pollock inspired dish. 

All three are small restaurants, with seatings of between 14 and 20. The music does not overpower the atmosphere as happens in most non-hotel restaurants in Mumbai and we had a great time, both sampling the food and drinks and chatting and catching up.

All three had eclectic food and cocktail selections, most of which worked well, all at 1/3rd to half the price of what you would get in Mumbai. More importantly, the staff was attentive and knowledgeable and you did not have to keep trying to grab their attention…our glasses were filled with water without asking at all 3 places, which after watching The Bear, has become an important parameter to judge how good a food place is run.

There are more places that we did not have a chance to go to, but will visit the next time we are there. North Goa and Panjim have become happening places and it is worth the effort to get out of the hotel to explore this exploding food and drinks scene.