10 Year Itch

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Udaipur offers a vast variety of restaurants just like any commercialized tourist-friendly city is expected to. Since real estate is hard to come by in the old city, rooftop restaurants are the norm. These are usually atop hotels providing accommodation as well. The hotels that are by the ghats offer nice lake views from their rooftop restaurants and therefore, charge more. These restaurants are relatively better furnished (matching chairs and tables) and have a good ambiance. The others offer city views and are usually just a bunch of tables and chairs thrown around the terrace of the hotel. Since we were there during the wedding season we were regaled with views of fancy firecrackers every where we looked, no matter which rooftop we were on . However, none of the older buildings have a lift so at most places we had to climb 4 to 5 floors to get to the rooftop; a great way to build appetite .

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O’Coquiera Music Garden Restaurant

A Lonely Planet pick, we had our first meal in Diu here. It was within walking distance of our hotel and seemed popular amongst the foreign tourists. It’s a family-run restaurant, set in the front yard of the family home. The yard is covered with a thatch-roofed mandap and lighted with colorful traditional, cloth lamps. The place has a great ambiance. The food’s excellent too – over 2 meals, we ate fried fish, prawns masala, fried calamari and pasta – they were all fantastic! But service is really slow. There’s just one smiling gentleman who takes all the orders, brings out the dishes, clears them and settles the bill. So it takes forever. There are just about 6 tables, but if they are all occupied, be prepared for a long, winding meal.

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Vihang’s Inn
Rating: 8 out of 10

Vihang’s Inn is a 3-star hotel, which has a vegetarian restaurant on the ground floor and a non-vegetarian one on the 1st floor. We ate at the non-vegetarian one. It is brightly lit and has a nice ambience. We ordered Chicken Hot & Sour soup as an appetizer. For the main course, we ordered 2 mangalorean-style chicken dishes and Appams and Neer Dosas (also a Mangalorean delicacy). Everything tasted fantastic and importantly, was priced well too. Our meal cost us Rs.1000, exactly, which is really cool for dinner for 4 in a nice restaurant.

Tareef
Rating: 9 out of 10

Tareef, a kabab joint, was originally a franchisee of Karim’s, Old Delhi’s famous eatery. But later, it was converted into a separate entity. The main door of the restaurant is a beautifully carved door and gives a great impression of the place as you walk up to it. The interiors are nicely decorated as well, using traditional Indian colors and woodwork. It’s a small restaurant with just about 10 to 12 tables, which were all occupied when we got there around 3pm. We had to wait for about 15 minutes before we were seated. Dinesh promised us that it has the best kababs and man, was he right! Because of our wada-pav snack a couple of hours prior, we weren’t too hungry so we only ordered 1 non-veg kabab platter and 1 mutton biryani. The kababs literally melted in our mouth; they were absolutely fantastic. The mutton biryaniwas quite different from any that we’ve had in the past – not too spicy but extremely flavorful. The mutton was perfectly cooked and tasted absolutely yummy. We finished the meal with an order of Shahi Tukda (bread pudding with dry fruits, topped with a creamy rabri) and Malai Kulfi, both of which were heavenly! This was probably one of the nicest meals we’ve had in India so far…

Hotel Brijwasi Royal, Station Rd, Mathura

Hotel Brijwasi Royal is a 3-star hotel and is probably one of the nicer ones in town, as we really didn’t see many other upscale hotels. Moreover, they keep getting visits from local dignitaries i.e. people who ride in govt vehicles and are very important-looking . So I’m quite certain this is ‘the’ place to be in Mathura. And the hotel’s quite nice too. The reception staff is friendly and efficient. Our room had a nice, comfortable bed, with ample room around it, air-conditioning and relatively good fixtures.

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As a child I have watched numerous Hindi films of the 80s where the hero and heroine sang and danced between beautiful sand-stone columns and palaces. Somebody told me then that one of the places where these movies are shot is called Fatehpur Sikri and since then I’ve always wanted to visit it. It’s only during the preparation of our travel that I found out about Fatehpur Sikri being a UNESCO World Heritage site and that it’s just about 60km away from Agra. So we reserved day 3 in Agra for this excursion…

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