Barbeque Nation - Wakad

I took dinner at Barbeque Nation recently. The restaurant is near wakad on Mumbai-Bangalore Highway bypass. We went on a weekday when there was heavy traffic.

Food: The menu of the hotel is available here. The restaurant offers only buffet which consists of starters, then soups and salad, then main course and then desserts. The main course consists of two or more punjabi subjis, naan/roti/paratha, rice/biryani and dal.

We started with paneer, aloo tikki, mushroom, vegetables, etc... starters but they were a bit spicy and my daughter couldn't take them a lot. So my wife brought main course and some desserts for her.

I personally did enjoy the starters a lot. In the main course, we did not go for soups or salads as our stomachs were completely full and if we had gone for them, we couldn't have got space left for main course and desserts. Since it was birthday, they did bring a cake for us and we did have a cutting ceremony.

Charges: The total bill came out to be around INR 1960 including taxes. I found it to be a bit on the higher side but still worth visiting.

ISKCON Temple, Katraj Kondhwa Bypass

I visited ISKCON Temple on Katraj Kondhwa Bypass yesterday. It is a nice place to spend half or a full day picnic.

Timings and Route: I left my home in car at around 6 PM and took the route shown here. There is one route that goes via Dagduseth, Swargate, Katraj Zoo and we chose this one while going but it took almost one hour 20 minutes since there was heavy traffic. While coming back we took the route that comes via NH-47 and it is actually 10 KM longer than the previous but due to low traffic, we did not take a lot of time. There are different timings of different aarti's including Mangla, Shringar, Rajbhog, etc... The doors remain closed between 8PM and 9PM so please visit accordingly.

Fees: There are no entry fees. But there are places where you can donate some amount to feed people for free and also to collect some prasad.

Food: The temple itself has provided an eatery which serves a lot of varieties of food including pav bhaji, chinese noodles, manchurian, dhosa, pastry, chhole bhature etc... at reasonable cost. The food was hygienic and quite tasty.

Activities: The sheer grandeur of the temple made us overwhelmed. There are stories of Dhruv, Prahlad, Krishna, etc... carved on the walls of the temple. 

All in all, we did enjoy our visit to a temple after a long long time.

Rahul Restaurant Aundh

I took lunch at Rahul Restaurant last week. The restaurant is just at the entrance of Nagras Road, Aundh.

Food: The menu of the restaurant is available here. 

We ordered Spring Roll, Veg Manchurian with gravy and Veg Hakka Noodles. The food was a bit spicy for my daughter but quite delicious. The ambiance was pretty good too.

Charges: The total bill came out to be INR 570 which I considered reasonable for three of us. All in all, it was a good restaurant and worth visiting.

Shakahari JW Marriott Senapati Bapat Road

I took lunch at Shakahari last week as part of celebrating my wife's birthday. The restaurant is at first floor inside the JW Marriott hotel, Senapati Bapat Road.

Food: The menu of the restaurant is available here. There was a Gujarati food festival going on in the restaurant between April 14-30.

We got iced tea as welcome drink. Then we started with Gujarati as well as Asian Salad. There were in total more than 50 items, including Khandvi, Papdi Chat, Samosa Chat, Dahi Wada, Chana Chat, Patra, Patra Chat, Khaman, Fafda-Chutney, Kachori Chat and many more Gujarati items as well as Japanese items, Mushroom, Masala baby corn, etc.. Asian items. There were drinks like Mango Lassi and Chhaas which were both delicious.

Then we ordered starters and main course. We chose to order more Gujarati food like Surti Dal, Kadhi, Rice, Fansi Dhokli, Roti. Both Dal and Kadhi were of typical Gujarati taste and I personally enjoyed them a lot.

When it came to desserts, we had lots of varieties there too. There were in total 20 different desserts including three flavours of ice-creams like strawberry, chocolate and vanilla, Mung dal shira, Gulab Jamun, five types of sweets, pastries, and some other desserts.

We reached the restaurant at around 1:30 PM and it took us around 3:30 PM to finish the whole lunch tasting each item just once. Our stomachs were so full that my wife complained of pain and we didn't eat anything for the rest of the day to give our stomachs some rest.

Fees: The total bill including taxes came to around INR 1880. I considered it a bit on the higher side for two people considering that my daughter is four and her meal is complimentary.

All in all, it is worth visiting both for the ambiance and grandeur of the hotel as well as food.

Casa Cabella Baner

I visited Casa Cabella restaurant, Baner on Friday 29th March.

Timings and Route: I reached the restaurant at around 9:00 PM. The restaurant is behind BPCL petrol pump, next to Mahabaleshwar Hotel at Pallod Farms.

Food: The menu of the restaurant is available here. We started with Cream of tomato and Basil soup. The soup was good but the bread-crumbs were burnt a bit. We then ordered Mac-N-Cheese pasta, Cannelloni pasta (not available in above menu currently priced at INR 170) and Grilled vegetable skewers. All three were quite delicious. The rice in vegetable skewers had a typical taste but it required to have that taste developed. We finally ordered one Chocolate brownie with ice cream.

Fees: The total bill came at around INR 635 (including service charges of INR 30). This was very less compared to the items we had ordered. We left the restaurant at around 10:15 PM but to our surprise, except for us, not a single other customer came to visit the restaurant. Both Zomato and Burrp gives good review for this restaurant and I too agreed with both the rating and the value for money recommendation for this restaurant. Please do visit this even before Polka Dots in Aundh.

Garudmaachi

I visited Garudmaachi on Friday, 8 March, 2013 as part of engineering offsite from the company I am working in.

Timings and Route: We left in volvo buses from office at 7:45 AM. I took the route shown here. We reached the place at around 10:15 AM. The website of the place is here.

Food: We had breakfast as soon as we reached the place at around 10:30 AM. We had poha and bread-butter-jam. We had our lunch at around 2:30 PM which included two sabjis, chapati, rice, soup and raita. In the evening, we had vada with hari mirch but I missed pav. Overall, the food quality was fine.

Tariffs: The place charged INR 1450 per person from us. There were some toll checks along the way that was paid by the company HR personnel.

Activities: There were a lot of activities that we carried out including:

• Walking on A-shape-bamboos: There was an A-shape bamboo structure per team which had four ropes tied. One guy had to board the bamboo and will have to remain on it for the duration of the activity. Others would have to steer him with four ropes to travel from one point to the other. Every team was given 30 minutes and had to try to make as many people reach from one end to the other. We could finish 3 but some teams finish as many as 8.
• Crossing the river: This was a no-brainer activity. A free plane had crocodiles and piranhas and we had to travel on a raft without talking.
• Rappelling: There was a 35-feet high rock which we had to rappel down with a rope tied to our waist.

Bhimashankar Temple

I visited Bhimashankar Temple yesterday. It is one of the twelve Jyotirlinga in India.

Timings and route: I left my home in my car at 8:30 AM and took the route shown here. Earlier I had thought of taking a left turn at Rajguru Nagar but the people guided me to take a longer route from Manchar. We reached the place at around 11:30 AM. There was one Dimbhe Dam along the way. The mountains were not lush green otherwise the view would have been mesmerizing.

Fees: There are two tolls along the way that charged INR 38 each. The entry to Bhimashankar requires you to shell out INR 20. 

Food: There were a lot of eateries along the way but we first had a dose of 'chikoos' and 'roasted corns' near the temple. While coming back, we took our lunch at 'Atithi' family garden restaurant which is around 15-20 KMs from Manchar towards Bhimashankar. They didn't have chinese and south indian but they had very delicious punjabi dishes which were served hot and we all were pretty hungry so we enjoyed the food very well. The total bill for four adults came to around INR 450 only which was a bargain compared to the place we were at.

Activities: Except for the temple, there isn't anything else to visit. During monsoon, you may enjoy the lush green mountains along the way.

All in all, it was worth one day visit.