I SHOULD NOT BE TELLING you about a wonderful place in the heart of Panjim in Goa, but I will.

The Clube Vasco da Gama is situated on the first floor of a building beside Panjim’s lovely Municipal Garden. Founded in 1909, it occupied other buildings before it moved to its present site. With a pleasant decor, which evokes times long past, the Clube serves a wide range of drinks and superbly prepared Goan food. Today, we enjoyed baby squids stuffed with minced vegetable and chopped up squid, served in a tasty sauce. We also ate croquettes filled with a mildly spiced prawn purée. In addition, we consumed fried fish served in a very spicy sauce. Everything tasted wonderful, and as we will be in Panjim for several days, we will work our way through the menu.

We first came across the Clube in April 2018, when the weather was almost unbearable: extremely hot and humid. Quite by chance we came across the Clube and decided to enter it. We discovered that it has two small balconies, each overlooking the Gardens. Each of them has a small table with three chairs. All day long, there is a lovely, cooling breeze blowing across these two tables, making them the coolest places to sit in central Panjim (without resorting to finding places with air-conditioning).

It is because there are only two of these wonderfully positioned tables, it is with some trepidation that I am telling you about them. I do not want to turn up at the Clube to find them occupied by those who have just read this!