Assagao Before the Rains: Feni Distilleries and the Last Quiet Suppers of May

By the third week of May, Assagao has shed its winter tourists like a second skin. The laterite lanes turn the colour of burnt sienna under a sun that refuses to negotiate, and the cashew trees drop their last fruit with a theatrical thud. This is the Goa that locals hoard for themselves — a brief, sweating interlude before the monsoon washes everything clean, when feni stills fire up for their final batches and restaurant kitchens cook with an unhurried, confessional intimacy.

This guide maps Assagao's pre-monsoon window — roughly the last ten days of May — through its feni distilleries, its end-of-season suppers, and the unhurried rituals that define a village refusing to perform for outsiders. You will find no beach clubs here. Instead, you will find a cashew farmer explaining the difference between a first and third distillation, a chef plating her last ambot tik before shuttering until October, and a silence so complete you can hear the toddy tapper's knife from fifty metres. This is Goa at its most honest, and it matters because it is disappearing.

1. The Cashew Feni Still at Madame Rosa's Orchard

Down a nameless red-dirt path off the Assagao-Mapusa road, past the blue chapel of Our Lady of Health, you will find a clearing where Santosh Naik runs one of Assagao's last traditional copper-pot feni stills. The operation is emphatically un-touristy: a bhann (the clay-and-copper distillation apparatus), a heap of fermented cashew apples, and Santosh's grandmother watching from a plastic chair. May is the final distillation month before the rains make outdoor work impossible.

The process begins with neero — fresh cashew apple juice collected that morning and fermented in a buried earthen pot called a kodem for three days. You can taste the neero before fermentation: it is tannic, almost unbearably astringent, and nothing like the smooth spirit it will become. Ask Santosh to let you try the first distillation (urrack) alongside the triple-distilled cazulo. The difference is a masterclass in subtlety versus strength.

Santosh charges nothing for visits but appreciates if you purchase a bottle. His cazulo feni, unbranded and sold in recycled Limca bottles, costs roughly 400 rupees per litre. It has a nose of overripe jackfruit and white pepper that no commercial bottler has managed to replicate. Do not ask for coconut feni here — this is strictly a cashew operation, and the distinction matters deeply to him.

To reach the still, turn left at the blue chapel approximately 200 metres past Villa Blanche Bistro on the Badem-Assagao stretch. There is no signboard. If you pass the hand-painted 'Fresh Fish' sign nailed to a mango tree, you have overshot by fifty metres. Mornings between 7 and 10 AM are best; by noon, the heat makes the clearing nearly unbearable.

2. End-of-Season Supper at Villa Azul Kitchen

Villa Azul Kitchen, tucked behind Goenkar Spice Farm on the Assagao-Anjuna border road, operates from a converted Portuguese veranda that seats exactly fourteen people. Chef-owner Maria Fernandes runs a no-menu format in May: you eat what she cooks from that morning's market run to the Mapusa Friday bazaar. The last suppers of the season — typically the final Friday and Saturday before she closes — are semi-legendary among Goa's food community.

On our visit, the meal opened with a sol kadhi so deeply pink it looked artificial, made from kokum harvested from a tree in her own garden. The main was a pork vindaloo built on a paste she grinds daily using Kashmiri chillies and palm vinegar aged three years. It was followed by her signature apa de camarao — a prawn cake steamed in turmeric leaves that you will not find at any restaurant in Panjim or Calangute.

Bookings are by WhatsApp only and must be confirmed with a 500-rupee advance per head. Maria does not accept walk-ins and has been known to turn away parties that arrive late. Dinner service begins at 8 PM sharp. Total cost runs about 1,800 rupees per person including a glass of her house feni cocktail — cazulo with tepid kokum water and a bruised curry leaf.

The veranda has no air conditioning, only ceiling fans that creak like an old hymn. By late May the humidity is around 80 percent, and the meal becomes a pleasantly sweaty, communal affair. Maria usually joins the table after the main course with a plate of bebinca she bakes in a clay oven out back. The evening ends when she decides it ends.

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3. The Toddy Tapper's Morning Route Along Bhat Lane

If you wake before 5:30 AM and walk along Bhat Lane — the narrow laterite path connecting St. Cajetan's Chapel to the Assagao panchayat office — you will encounter Raju, a third-generation toddy tapper who climbs eight coconut palms every morning to collect sur, the fresh sap that ferments into toddy by afternoon. He has been doing this for thirty-one years and moves up a trunk with unnerving speed using only a rope loop around his ankles.

Raju will offer you a taste of fresh sur directly from the clay pot he carries down. It is mildly sweet, faintly yeasty, and tastes nothing like the sour, fizzy toddy sold at shacks. This pre-fermentation stage lasts only about two hours before the Goan heat starts the conversion. Drinking it fresh from the pot, still warm from the palm crown, is one of those experiences that cannot be replicated outside this context.

He finishes his route by 7 AM and delivers to a toddy shop near Mapusa's municipal market. If you want to follow him from tree to tree, ask permission first and stay clear of the drop zone — fallen coconuts in May are a genuine hazard. Wear closed-toe shoes; the laterite is rough and sometimes hosts small scorpions after warm nights.

Raju does not work Sundays or feast days. The best days to find him are Tuesday through Saturday. He speaks Konkani and basic Hindi but no English. A respectful greeting in Konkani — 'Dev borem korum' — will earn you an immediate grin and usually a longer demonstration of his tapping technique.

4. Gunpowder Restaurant's Off-Menu Prawn Recheado Toast

Gunpowder, the well-known South Indian restaurant on the Assagao-Vagator road near the Bodla House, is no secret. But its off-menu prawn recheado toast — available only to those who ask — is a piece of intelligence worth hoarding. The kitchen prepares recheado masala in small batches using a recipe from head chef Sana's grandmother, and when prawns from the Chapora catch are particularly good, she will spread the paste on poi bread, grill it, and top it with the prawns.

This is not on any delivery app or printed menu. You need to arrive for lunch service — ideally by 12:30 PM before the kitchen gets slammed — and ask your server whether the recheado toast is available that day. It runs approximately 450 rupees and comes with a side of pickled shallots that cut through the masala's heat with surgical precision.

Gunpowder's garden seating is particularly good in late May because the mango tree at the centre is heavy with fruit, and the staff occasionally bring out slices of Mankurad mango between courses as an unannounced palate cleanser. Pair the toast with their Neer Dosa and a Sol Kadhi. Avoid the weekend brunch crowd by visiting on a Wednesday or Thursday.

The restaurant closes for monsoon break typically by the first week of June, so timing your visit for the last week of May means you will catch the kitchen in a relaxed, generous mood — the pressure of peak season has lifted, and the staff cook with a lightness that shows in every plate.

5. The Abandoned Chapel Walk and the Mango Orchards of North Assagao

North Assagao, beyond the yoga shalas and boutique stays, holds a walking route that few visitors discover. Start at the faded yellow cross near Saipem Hills and follow the dirt track northeast for roughly 1.2 kilometres until you reach a roofless Portuguese-era chapel overtaken by banyan roots. The chapel — locally called the 'Capela Velha' — has no heritage board and no restoration plans. It is simply there, crumbling with enormous dignity.

The walk passes through three mango orchards where Mankurad and Mussarat varieties hang heavy in May. The orchard owners generally tolerate walkers who stay on the path and do not pick fruit, but if you see someone working the trees, a polite request will sometimes get you a mango or two. The Mankurad in late May is at its absolute peak — creamy, almost custardy, with zero fibre.

Bring water and a hat. There is no shade for the final 300-metre stretch to the chapel, and by 9 AM the laterite radiates stored heat like a tandoor. The walk is best done between 6 and 8 AM, when the light through the orchard canopy is golden-green and the birdlife — paradise flycatchers, white-throated kingfishers — is at its most vocal.

At the chapel itself, the interior walls retain fragments of blue azulejo tiles, surprisingly intact given decades of exposure. The apse has a carved stone niche that once held a saint's figure. Sit on the remaining stone bench and you will understand why someone built a church in exactly this spot — the view through the collapsed east wall opens onto a paddy field that stretches uninterrupted to the treeline.

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6. Feni Cocktails at Sakaal Bar's Pre-Monsoon Tasting Night

Sakaal Bar, operating from a converted warehouse behind the Assagao football ground near the main junction, hosts a single pre-monsoon feni tasting night in the last week of May — a date announced on their Instagram exactly five days before the event. The format is simple: six feni-based cocktails, each paired with a small Goan tapa, for a flat 2,500 rupees. Attendance caps at forty people and sells out within hours of the announcement.

The cocktails are built by bartender Jerome D'Souza, who treats feni with the same seriousness a mezcal specialist brings to agave spirits. His standout creation is the Assagao Sour — cazulo feni, fresh lime, palm jaggery syrup, and a float of kokum reduction that stains the foam purple. It is the kind of drink that makes you re-evaluate an entire spirit category.

The tapas pairings are handled by a rotating guest chef. Last May's edition featured chorizo pao sliders and a raw mango ceviche with toddy vinegar that generated serious chatter on Goa's food WhatsApp groups. Jerome insists on serving each cocktail at a specific temperature, which means you cannot rush the evening — the pacing is deliberate, and the event runs roughly three hours.

The warehouse space is industrial-chic without being performatively so: exposed brick, a corrugated roof, and fairy lights that someone clearly strung with care. The acoustics bounce conversation pleasantly off the walls. No music is played; Jerome believes feni tastings deserve the same attentive silence as wine. He is not wrong.

7. The Mapusa Friday Market: A Sourcing Run Before the Monsoon Shutdown

Mapusa's Friday market, a fifteen-minute ride from Assagao, is not a hidden gem in itself — but visiting in late May reveals a market operating in valedictory mode. Vendors are selling off the last of the season's cashew fruit, dried mackerel, and Goan sausage (chouriço) at noticeably lower prices because they know the monsoon will shutter stalls for weeks. This is when you buy provisions.

Head to the covered spice section near the east gate and find Anita's stall — identifiable by the hand-lettered 'Goenchi Masala' sign and the mountain of recheado paste stacked in recycled jam jars. Her paste is made from a family recipe involving thirty-one ingredients and is vastly superior to anything sold at the tourist shops in Panjim. A 200-gram jar costs 150 rupees and lasts months in a refrigerator.

The fresh fish section peaks between 7 and 8 AM on Fridays. Look for Chonak (black snapper), Modso (ladyfish), and the small silver Mandeli that locals fry whole with a turmeric-chilli rub. If you are staying somewhere with a kitchen, buying fish here and cooking it yourself is one of the great pleasures of pre-monsoon Goa. Ask the fishmonger to clean the catch — they do it expertly and for free.

Avoid the market after 10:30 AM when the heat becomes genuinely oppressive and the produce quality drops as ice melts. Wear sandals you do not care about — the floor near the fish section is perpetually wet and fragrant in ways that reward early arrival and punish delay.