Imagine you are in Goa, you have been clubbing through the night, you had a few drinks. Now the clubs have closed, the party is over and its time to make your way back to your hotel room. It’s 4:30 AM, quite an ungodly hour by any means. And after all the energy spent dancing, you are hungry, hungry as hell. You are in no mood to settle for a room service tea and toast. What do you do?

You drive to Candolim, to a little eatery on the Candolim Sequerim road, called ‘De Candolim Deck’. This is a 24 hour open eatery, with charming wooden interiors and a good menu to offer at all times of the day. Most of the menu is available all through the day, and night. It is a place that welcomes “Travelers of the World” with open arms.

One of the to-do rituals in my Goa list today, I discovered this place in exactly the same situation that I described above. Tired and hungry after a long clubbing night, the clubs closed at 3, I went around hunting for good, economic food. That’s when I passed by this place as I was driving by and decided to give it a try. It had good music playing, and enough activity going to make me feel I could visit it, even at this hour, alone that I was.

I have always been keen to try new dishes and try as much as possible to stray away from the mainstream or common dishes that can be found on every menu from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. That led me to the discovery of a simple yet amazing dish in the menu – Cumpo Potato. So much did I eat it here, that now the staff there recognizes me and knows exactly what I will order, even if I go Goa only once a year.

Cumpo Potato is a dish with stir fried potatoes, tossed in a red spicy gravy, bits of cashews and some springs and some chopped garlic. The red gravy is principally made from red chili paste. The cashew bits and the spring onions being a pleasant relief to the otherwise really spicy dish with abundance of red chili paste and garlic. This dish tastes super amazing and is super filling, no matter what time of the day. Moreover, it is available 24/7 at the restaurant, and in all this time I have been eating it, I have never felt the taste change at all.

With the spicy dish, it is good to have a refreshing accompaniment, and my choice generally lingers over Tequila Sunrise, one of my favorite mocktails. Though Infantaria makes this mocktail better, the Tequila Sunrise forms a good accompaniment to the Cumpo Potato, adding in a burst of fruity flavors in every sip to help your taste buds recover from the spice shock it gets from each spoonful of the cumpo potato.

Overall, De Candolim Deck is a very economic and cool place to hang out and find good food at all hours of the day. Their breakfast options are also really good.