Chaat Bazaar Aundh

We visited Chaat Bazaar, a newly opened restaurant last week at Aundh. Earlier there was a book rental shop JustBooks Plc which moved to first floor while the ground floor got leased by the new restaurant. Our favourite Kadhai in Anand Park got closed two months back so we wanted to try our hands on something new.

Food: We went to restaurant multiple times and tried several different items as given in the list below:

• Pizza Dosa - This was a very new item for us and surprisingly, it turned out to be good. My daughter likes pizza and she liked this one too wrapped with dosa around it. There were two chutneys with the item which was quite tasty.
• Masala Dosa - This was an item made of beet root and the sambhar was better then even at Vaishali.
• Chinese Bhel - This was not something according to our expectation and I didn't think it was value for money.
• Pani puri - This was quite good.
• Hakka Noodles - This along with gravy manuchrian was what my daughter was looking for.
• Gravy Manuchrian - This was good but not as great as that of Rahul restaurant.

We will keep visiting again to check for more items. It is worth trying out.

ISKCON Temple Nigdi

I visited ISKCON Temple near Nigdi yesterday. It was a nice place to spend an evening with your family.

Timings and Route: I left from my home in Aundh at 6 PM and took the route shown here and reached there by around 6:40 PM. There are different times for aarti and the next one was at 7 PM. The last one had already completed at 6:25 PM so we were neither late nor early.

We took some pradakshina around the temple and then waited for the curtains to open to have a view of Krishna and Radha. I told my wife how beautiful the multi-color chaniya/lehanga of Radha looked. I even searched for photos of temple and didn't find such dress worn by her in earlier photos Google search.

Fees: There were no fees for the temple.

Food: There was some prasad being given outside the temple and we took some to taste it. It was delicious at best.

All in all, we did enjoy the trip.

P.S. : No selfies were allowed in the temple but I had taken some photos of the temple itself and looks like Krishna didn't like it since I forgot my slr camera lens cover in temple itself. Big punishment for taking photos!My daughter found the lens cap from my car. So no punishment from Krishna in taking snaps.

Lashkari Bhajiya Dumas

Typically I write about places in Pune but this time I visited a nice eatery near my native place Surat and I wanted to share my experience. We went to Dumas to eat Bhajiya this Sunday when I visited my native place Surat.

Food: You get to eat different kinds of Bhajiya here that includes:

• Tomota Bhajiya
• Onion Bhajiya
• Methi Bhajiya (Gota)
• Ratalu (Kand) Bhajiya

Charges were 80 per plate (which included around 250 gm of bhajiya) but were varying based on the type. For a group of seven of us, we hardly spent around 500 for our breakfast. I also took parcel for my parents as they didn't accompany us. All in all it really was one of its kind experience. I would recommend you to go there if you visit Surat.

Greens and Olives Aundh

We visited Greens and Olives restaurant on last Thursday as part of celebrating my wife's birthday.

Food: The menu of the restaurant is available here. The restaurant offers buffet lunch and a la carte. There were many items on menu but we ordered following:

• My wife and I ordered Brocolli Cheese Soup - we really liked it.
• We ordered Classic Italian Minestrone Soup - this was plain soup so we didn't like much.
• Lebanese Platter - this included Falafel with Pita Bread and Hummus. I had recently eaten a similar item in Surat and I knew how to eat it otherwise it was difficult to understand how to eat it.
• Mexican Rice - This was the best item we had.
• Brownie with ice cream

The total bill came to 1635 which was a bit on the higher side for three people but due to my wife's birthday, I didn't care much.

Nature Photography Exhibition in Balgandharva Kaladalan, JM Road

There was a nature photography exhibition in Balgandharva Kaladalan, J M Road between April 9 - 11. My wife and I visited the exhibition on April 10, in the evening at 7:30 PM. The exhibition timing was between 11 AM to 8 PM. My daughter didn't accompany us since she wanted to spend her sunday evening playing in garden with her friends rather than visiting an exhibition.

There were many artists whose pictures were kept. Photography was not allowed otherwise I would have kept some glimpses of those photos here. The photos covered animals like tiger, deer and others, birds, butterflies and buildings. There were photos of scenic views from Uttarakhand, Kashmir, Sikkim and other beautiful places too. Unfortunately not only Indian but even buildings of other countries were covered.

It was a good half an hour fun for us.

Sigree Global Grill - Dhole Patil Road

I visited Sigree Global Grill restaurant on Dhole Patil Road as part of taking on lunch some office guests visiting from US.

Food: The menu of the restaurant is available here. The restaurant offers buffet lunch and dinner. There were many items on lunch.

• There were soups but nobody went for any.
• The restaurant served many grills both veg and non-veg which included
• Mushroom
• Mayonnaise with Salad
• Pineapple
• Potato
• Paneer
• Brocoli
• In the mains, there were four vegetables which I am not able to recall but one was with Paneer, one Jalfrezi, and two more were served.
• We went for Naan, Roti and other breads.
• There were two dals, makhani and fry.
• I went for rice rather than biryani.
• I also ordered for fussili with pasto tomato souce for pasta among varieties.

Finally we went for desserts and found ice-cream, chocolate and strawberry mousse, cake, and many others.

The experience was very similar to Barbeque Nation. Since it was financed by office, I didn't care for cost. I even dozed off on my desk when we reached office.

Shreya Ghoshal Solo Concert

I visited first of its kind Shreya Ghoshal Solo Concert in pune on 21 February.

Entertainment: We started from Aundh at around 5:45 PM and reached the Law College Ground at 6:15 PM. We had booked tickets from bookmyshow and physical tickets were issued to us there. There were seating arrangements and we were on the back side but I had carried my Zoom Lens SLR and a binocular. The organizer had also put projector screens for viewers seating on the back.


Shreya arrived half an hour late by around 7 PM and sang continuously for almost one hour. Then there was a break for around 45 mins and then she continued singing for one more hour. Many nice songs were sung by her including "Saaibo", "Sun raha hai na tu", "Yeh Ishq hai", etc... We were mesmerized by her voice.

Charges: There were four different tickets available ranging from INR 500 to INR 2000. We had bought INR 500 tickets for three of us.

All in all, it was a great Sunday evening.