High Spirits, Koregaon Park

High Spirits is one of those places in Pune which champions Live Music. The team at the restaurant are constantly scouring the bands from around India and given them the opportunity to play in a City which values its Music.

The ambiance is lovely with an option of sitting outside near the bar and and the back, along with a air conditioned indoor seating space.

The food also is reasonably priced and packs a punch to those taste buds.

High spirits though is the Leader in the Sunday Brunches section. Their High Cookout is one of the most looked at event for the weekend and you are bound to bump into someone or the other who you know there. Unlimited Beer & Sangria + Brunch @ 850/- and Only Brunch @ 500/-. They keep on having the live music scene here again and those bands just kill it week in and week out.

I recommend going to the Karaoke Nights as well along with the Sunday Brunch.

All in all whenever you have a feeling to go have a good time with your friends, High Spirits is the place to go to.

Shruti, Hotel Ratnalok - Nigdi, Pune

The restaurant at Hotel Ratnalok is named Shruti, and is among the best restaurants in the Pimpri Chinchwad area. It is located on the Mumbai-Pune highway opposite Bajaj Auto near the Nigdi flyover. To reach the place, leave the main grid separator on the highway at Chinchwad and continue towards Nigdi.

 

A paradise for both vegetarian and non vegetarian food, Shruti also offers alcoholic beverages and smoking area. Having been a resident of Nigdi, I frequent this place and truly like the food. Also, the service is fast and the waitors at the restaurant remember your preference of place and food if you are a frequent visitor. I would recommend you not to pick the central tables as they are very uncomfortable and instead take the ones on the sides.

 

Let us first discuss the vegetarian menu. The soups and shorbas served at the restaurant are not one of their specialities. So, you can very well give them a miss. I often found huge alteration in the taste of soups on various occasions and hence would advise you to try them at your own risk. However, the starters are delightful. Among the vegetarian starters, I found Aloo Kajoo Rolls and Paneer Murabba Kabab the most. The delightful part about the Paneer Murabba Kabab being the ultra soft paneer that melts in your mouth. Also, among the Chinese Starters one should definitely try Paneer Hot Pan and Crispy Baby Corn. The helpings for starters are generous and a single order can easily satiate the appetiser desire of 3-4 hungry men.

 

Moving to the vegetarian main course, the restaurant offers a variety of choices which most of the other restaurants offer. What stands out in terms of exclusiveness for the restaurant is Kumbh Hara Dhaniya, which is a mushroom preparation. Also, the Paneer Bhurji served at the restaurant has a unique taste due to the slight roasting of the paneer before the preparation of bhurji. Top is up with decently sized and priced butter rotis. Among the items made of rice, the biryanis are horrible and I would never recommend you to try them unless you want to eat rice and vegetables. Instead, Khichdi Kadi is a safe option. Also, give a miss to the continental dishes served at the restaurant as they are not their speciality.

 

Moving to non vegetarian menu, the restaurant is among the few in Nigdi to offer such a wide variety of non vegetarian dishes and is a true delight for meat lovers. Murg Malai Kabab and Gosht Kakori Kabab are some of the most popular and well prepared dishes at the restaurant. If you love fishes like I do, do not ever miss the Fish Tawa Surmai at this restaurant. Prepared with just a slight tinge of spices, the preparation is a delight to savor.

 

The non vegetarian main course has huge variety and most of the preparations are decent. I would recommend going for boneless chicken dishes by paying Rs 20 extra as it making the dining experience better. The Gosht Maratha is one of the specialities of the place and if you like having mutton, especially spicy mutton, then this is the dish for you. The menu also has sea food mentioned in it, but it is best to avoid the same as it is often not very fresh. The non vegetarian biryanis are also forgettable.

 

The desserts that is most popular at Shruti is Leechi with Cream and should be tried at least once. And yes, the choice of liquor is up to you but it is advisable for non-alcoholics to give mocktails a miss.

Shikara - Kalyani Nagar, Pune

Time for the review of Shikara, probably one of the best restaurants when it comes to the authentic North Indian taste and flavours. Move over the Punjabi flavours, the restaurant boasts of amazing lip-smacking Kashmiri cuisines. Located in Kalyani Nagar opposite Gold Adlabs (Big Cinemas), it is an ideal place for a well planned dinner.

Locating the restaurant is easy since it is the sister resturant of Cassanova, an Italian restaurant. We shall discuss more about Cassanova in some other blog. Undoubtably, Shikara is the better one when it comes to some authentic lip-smacking food. Located at the top floor, the ambience is just fine. The architecture though it quite nicely planned. The shape of a boat (Shikara is a house boat found in kashmir) is quite evident. Since some of the corners tables are damp, you need to search for a good one. The rooftop restaurant is not air conditioned, so it is suggested that you choose the right weather while planning a visit. Both summers and winters with clear weather would suit as the place is adequately comfortable. The tables are large and spacious and the cushions are a real plus.

The restaurant offers both hookah and liquor(a must with some delicious chicken and lamb). To the menu card, the dishes have been named in peculiar kashmiri and hindi, so I would suggest you to either read the discription or confirm with the waitors before you order. The staff is well informed and cordial. We went about trying moctails which were, to be frank, average. Moving to the starters, Shahi Kumbh (Mushroom Kebabs) was awesome. The mushroom had been nicely marinated and the spices had sept so nicely inside the succulent mushroom that every bite into the juicy mushrooms was a treat. The spices were authentic North-Indian combination and the dish was absolutely perfect. I could hardly think of another place where I could find such amazingly done Mushroom kebabs in Pune. The expectations were rising with an absolute mind blowing treat of mushrooms. So right at the beginning, Shahi Kumbh is highly recommended. Next in line was some chicken. Although not the best but the taste was amazing and was very well marinated like the mushrooms.

For the main course, we went for Shahi Paneer, Dal Makhani, Lamb and Rajma. It took quite some time and two reminders for the main course to arrive though. So make sure you have a lot of free time whenever you plan to visit this place. The food finally arrived, and it gave an average look. But again the expectations were high after the amazing starters as far as the taste was concerned. The Rajma was the original Kashmiri Rajma and it was such a delight to find them in Pune. The Dal Makhani was above average, since it was quite bland as compared to the other preparations. The lamb was nicely garnished and the curry was smelling of cinnamon. The high point of the main course though was the shahi paneer, done amazingly with the slight taste of mint in the preparation. The roomali roti was a trun off and is not recommended, the Kulcha however was very good. Rice is something for which Kashmiris have a great liking and there were high expectations. The rice were long and looked amazing, but lacked the essential aroma.

Not much of a choice when it came to the desserts, so we decided to give it a miss. The liquor department was left untouched as the ones being served were the regular ones like any other restaurant. Hooka was an additional plus and can be enjoyed when you have ample time to spend.

Coming to another important part, the pricing, the restaurant is priced above average. The dinner for two could cost as much as 1500 without desserts. But the food is worth the price.

To end with, the restaurant is highly recommended on a leisurely evening when you want to dig those teeth into some tasty food.

Rating:

Food - 4.5/5

Ambience - 3/5

Copacabana - Wakad, Pune

Copacabana is a medium priced liquor serving restaurant located about 6 kilometers from Hinjewadi in Wakad. The nearest landmarks are the Cafe Coffee Day outlet and Hotel Khyber Pass which are located next to this restaurant. The restaurant is not difficult to locate as it is situated on the main road.

I walked into the restaurant with the esteemed company of 15-18 of my work-mates. Firstly, there was ample parking space in the restaurant and thats a plus point when compared to the nearby food joints where you have to park your vehicle on the road. The exterior ambiance was not superb but the joint was clean.

Upon entering the restaurant, we were glad to see the waiters dressed in Caribbean style shorts and shirts. Although the restaurant is into the expansion phase, yet it was nicely maintained. It took us a lot of time finding a suitable place for seating 15-18 people. Plus there is no scope to have any sort of amusement activity at the place as it is a typical restaurant. So waiting without some great company can be a task. So, if you are planning to come down, please ensure that you have a reservation done.

We finally found a suitable place, the menu was nicely written although it did not offer much variety in terms of vegetarian dishes. The non-veg section had some good choices though. We decided to dig our teeth into almost everything in the menu card which looked interesting.

Sparing liquor which holds the same taste everywhere, the mocktails were nicely made and served and they offered a lot of choice. Though the ones with mango pulp were bland and tasted like ice minus mango. I would recommend Virgin Mary as a suitable option for Mocktails.

The soups were rich although not many decided to try them but I did not want to miss out on reviewing the soup section. The tomato soup was rich and was perfect, but the chicken soup lacked consistency. The starters were served with quite some delay, so be prepared for the same while placing orders. When they finally arrived, they were wholesome in quantity. The chicken was nicely marinated, whereas the contents of the veg platter were poorly done and needed more marination and better cooking and was simply too bland. So was the case with cottage cheese, which was not marinated before cooking and hence lacked taste. For the vegetarians, honey-chilly-mushroom is a recommendation which should be tried out. In non-veg, prawns were a total disaster, and I strongly recommend against it. Chicken had limited choices but was nicely done.

The wait for the main course was lesser as compared to the starters, though here too, the non vegetarian dishes were much more nicely prepared as compared to the vegetarian dishes. There is a limited choice for vegetarian dishes and I recommend that one should go in for the less spicy varieties as the spicier vegetables were cooked in a lot of oil and were almost overflowing with it. The chicken dishes were again the best among the non-veg offerings. The rice, specially the pulav was really nice. among the bread, Naan was the best as the rumali rotis were crying for improvement.

Overall, the quantity of food was adequate and the quality was above average. The restaurant does not offer any kind of corporate discounts and has all standard payment methods available. The restaurant offers value for money.

Ratings:
Ambiance : 3/5
Food : 3/5