On a Monday morning, a food writer who covers Goa opens her laptop to 40 emails. Thirty-eight of them begin with a version of the same sentence: we are excited to announce. New menu, new chef, new branch, new season. She clears them in about a minute. Two survive. One is from a place in Panjim whose owner read her piece on monsoon cooking and wanted to tell her what happens in his kitchen when the boats stop coming in.

Every restaurant in Goa knows its regulars. The table that comes every Sunday after mass. The couple who found you during one monsoon and kept returning. The group that celebrates every birthday in your corner booth. Now here is a question worth sitting with: when you have an event worth turning up for, a Friday band, a feast day menu, an open mic, how do these people find out?