There are no true restaurants in Harihareshwar. The two hotels in town, MTDC Resort and Beach Resort, have their own cafeteria; we only tried the MTDC one. Apart from these, many homes provide food along with lodging. We ate at a couple of these and absolutely enjoyed every meal. In fact, Konkani food has been the best we’ve had so far in our India travel .
MTDC Resort’s Cafeteria
Address: Harihareshwar, Raigarh District, MaharashtraThe location of MTDC Resort’s cafeteria is absolutely heavenly with its sea-side setting. And thankfully, the food turned out to be as good. We had tea and snacks twice here and dinner once. For snacks we ordered Pohe and Mixed Veg Pakodas, and for dinner we ate chicken and prawns. All these were well-prepared and extremely tasty.
The only problem is service or rather, the lack of it! I had always imagined any sarkari place’s service to be quite pathetic. But MP Tourism’s hotels had changed that view completely with their fantastic service and well-maintained properties. However, Maharashtra tourism’s cafeteria staff completely lived up to my earlier image of sarkari workers . They were completely disinterested in their job. When we walked up to the cafeteria to place our order, the staff wouldn’t even meet our eye lest we ask them to do something for us . They would all be watching TV intently while completely ignoring us. After a few seconds of staring at them, one amongst them would reluctantly ask us what we wanted and then turn around in no great hurry to get the work done – extremely amusing! I wonder how they managed to cook up such tasty food in spite of this! The guy who served us did his job efficiently enough but never once looked even remotely interested in it. Even Madhu’s generous tips didn’t seem to increase his enthusiasm .
Nevertheless, this is a great place for breakfast, lunch or evening snacks when the view out to the sea is absolutely breathtaking!
Rating: 8 out of 10 (would have been a perfect 10 if the service had been better)
Guru Geetha
This is a small restaurant run in what must have been the family’s living space before. It is located strategically on the road that leads to the Harihareshwar temple and seems to be quite popular with visitors. The cooking is probably done by all the family members but the restaurant is operated by a young lad named Dinesh. He serves the food and works the cash counter as well. He’s quite efficient and very friendly.
We ate quite a few meals here and loved them all. They cook simple, home-style food at very reasonable rates. For lunch and dinner, they only serve Thalis – either vegetarian or non-vegetarian. The Thalis consist of two sabzis and a daal or one non-veg item, 3 rotis or 1 Bhakri, salad and rice. One day we pre-ordered crab for dinner and they cooked up a fantastic curry for us. And it only cost Rs.80 per Thali .
The restaurant is very basic with no frills; plastic chairs and tables are old and worn-out.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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