Savoi Plantation in Savoi Verem, Goa, serves a Goan meal so sublime, those who eat it even once, never forget it. But the 200 year old Savoi Plantation is much more than just a place to eat great Goan food in Goa. It is a living museum of Goan Saraswat cuisine, lovingly preserved by the Shetye family over six generations. And this family will show you one-of-a-kind hospitality.
0:00 Savoi Plantation
0:53 How to reach Savoi Plantation
2:30 How to book Savoi Plantation visit
4:51 Savoi Plantation tour
11:40 Goan Saraswat lunch at Savoi Plantation
The cost of the entire experience, from welcome drink to plantation tour and traditional Saraswat meal is Rs 1,200 per head, Rs 1,300 on Saturdays and Sundays, and half for children aged 4 to 10 yrs. Visits to Savoi Plantation must be booked at least a day in advance.
Contact: (+91)9637838389 or 9423888899.
Location: Savoi Plantation, Savoi Verem village, Ponda taluka, North Goa. From Panjim (40 minutes drive), you can follow the Panjim-Bainguinim-Ponda highway or Ribander-Old Goa-Gandaulim routes to Marcel. From Marcel market, turn onto the Betqui-Volvoi-Savoi Verem road. Soon after Volvoi comes the right turn to Savoi Plantation, before you reach Savoi Verem village.
From the south Margao (1 hour drive) and Ponda (30 minutes drive) side, drive via Querim to Savoi Verem and continue past Savoi Verem village towards Volvoi, to reach the turnoff for Savoi Plantation.
Savoi Plantation Google Maps location: goo.gl/maps/tRP7cLJgs1TA6DnX8
The Saraswat hospitality begins as soon as you enter the plantation, with a welcome kokum drink, chakreos and cashewnuts. Then comes the plantation tour, led by Baburao Shetye, or simply Sachin to family and friends. Sachin, a sixth generation Shetye, farms the plantation. His mother Shalan and wife Seema prepare the fantastic Saraswat meals served here.
The plantation tour is a half hour, gentle walk along which Sachin will introduce you to many of the core ingredients of Goan cuisine which grow here. Each discovery of ingredients in their natural setting will serve to whet your appetite for the meal to follow.
Some sights we saw on our last visit: elephant ear (large leaf colocasia, or arbi); elephant foot yam (suran or zimikand), Krishna chakra (passionfruit flower), bay leaf, cinnamon (tikki), supari (areca palm), nutmegs (jaiphal), mace (javitri), turmeric, aru (taro/teryo panam), champa, crotons, bananas, ixora (West Indian jasmine), Heart of Jesus (Caladium bicolour), pomelo, red ginger, guavas, vanilla plants.
These are just a few vignettes of this massive plantation. Depending on the time of year you visit, you will see different spices flowering and fruiting.
After the tour, while Sachin readies the buffet-style meal, we take a look at the lovingly preserved ancestral kitchen tools decorating the dining area.
Viola points out the eco-friendly roofing and thatching, and this eco-sensitivity is especially seen in the implements from a bygone era. Even the plates used here are made from the ribs of the leaves of areca (supari) palms and are biodegradable. Savoi Plantation is showing the way to offer Goan hospitality without harming the environment.
Our meal starts with a glass of cashew feni distilled at Savoi Plantation.
What we ate on our last visit: rice, Goan (parboiled) rice (ukde xit), chapati, dal, ghonta (small, ganvti mango) sasav, ambade (hog plum) raita (a tangy, sour fruit in yoghurt dish), curd, green banana and potato phodis (coated in semolina and fried), seasonal jackfruit and jackfruit seed ghore, banana flower vegetable, tendli (ivy gourd) bhaji, kurma of bananas and kidney beans, Saraswat prawn curry with drumsticks, chicken shagoti, rawa fried chonak, beautiful rawa fried prawns, kingfish (visvon), shetuk (silver perch), mango, garlic, green chilli and sweet lime pickle, and sal kari with coconut milk.
This is one of the best meals in Goa, if not the best.
A trip to Savoi Plantation can be made into a whole day’s outing. I like to take my guests to see the churches of Old Goa and the beautiful, unique Devki-Krishna temple at Marcela, before heading east to Savoi Plantation. Already hungry from sightseeing, they get even more hungry walking through the plantation, knowing that they will soon eat a meal prepared from the plants they are discovering. Sometimes, after having lunch here, we rest a while and then go for a lovely boat ride to spot crocodiles in the Cumbarjua canal.
I have often come across big groups from Mumbai, Pune, Satara and Kolhapur, who’ve come here to eat when visiting the temples of Ponda.
Visits to Savoi Plantation must be booked at least a day in advance.
Contact: (+91)9637838389 or 9423888899.
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Music: Anna Landstrom / All Days and Always, Sky in Your Eyes, Softly Touching, Surfaces, The Willow, To Fall Again / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com