In a nutshell:

A colorful & interesting restaurant with loud & beautiful décor, good service that serves good vegetarian food from around the world (including Indian food).

Address & other details:  Mango Tree

Meal for 2: Rs. 200 onwards

Cuisine type : Vegetarian & eggs

Disclaimer: All restaurants / eateries reviewed by YUMMRAJ were visited by YUMMRAJ himself & he has paid for the full Bill & tips also. http://www.yummraj.com does not have even one featured / sponsored reviews. YUMMRAJ believes in going to a restaurant in anonymity, as a normal guest, experience everything & give a honest account of the same to you.

I rate all the food items & then give a final overall rating which is a simple average of the individual item ratings. What the ratings stand for: 5 = Excellent, 4 = Very Good, 3 = Good, 2 = Fair, 1 = Disaster.

Short Description – in case u r in a hurry:

Our tour guide of Hampi referred us to this place after we requested him to recommend us a place that serves authentic local cuisine. What we realized on reaching the place was that there was only 1 South Indian dish in the whole menu, Rest everything Indian was North Indian. There were vegetarian food from many parts of the world – Italy, Middle East, South America etc

The restaurant looked like a covered Goa shack from outside. As we stepped in, we realized that it was a very heavily decorated tent equipped with fans, light, music.

The restaurant had chair and table seating + options to sit on the floor on mats. People who chose to sit on the floor had to open the shoes outside & enter the restaurant.

Light Indian classical instrumental music was playing in the background at a volume that was enjoyable, not too loud, not too soft. One cud enjoy a conversation in the backdrop of the music.

A bunch of firang kids were chilling out on the mattresses in one corner – sitting on the floor, lying down, half yogic postures etc.

Another corner of the restaurant had become a Far East Asian area. We were the only Indians in the restaurant. A Japanese guy was on ‘FaceTime’ with maybe his girl friend, right in the middle of the room.

Just as I finished writing this sentence we saw the second Indian family walk in. We and them remained the only Indians in this almost full restaurant for the rest of the evening.

All food served at this restaurant was vegetarian coz hampi is ‘vegetarian’ and ‘ no alcohol ‘ place. Funny coz I was told that the famous king of Vijayanagara (Modern day Hampi), Krishnadevaraya was a non vegetarian himself. During his rule non vegetarian food & alcohol were both common for the Royalty as well as the commoners. Read an interesting post on food habits of people during Vijayanagara Empire. To read it pls click here – food habits.

Service in the restaurant was good. Our server was specially nice. He treated us very well & took good care.

The menu card was long & had loads of options. For tourists camping in Hampi for a week / more I guess there is enough in the menu to enable trying a new dish every meal.

Detailed Description – In case u have the Time to NJOY reading:

We ordered a Lemon ginger drink. It was excellent. Lemon, ginger and mint all made their presence felt. Very balanced. Very nice. Rate it 4.25/5

We also ordered Pineapple juice on recommendation by our server. It was good.Rate it 3/5

We also had Lemon nana – the lemon & Mint drink that we had had for the first time at Tamarind Tree Food Point the same day. The lemon nana at Mango Tree was good but the one that we had at lunch was way better. The drink here was robust,but  somewhat pale as compared to the one at Food Point. Rate it 3.5/5

We ordered the South Indian Thali. It had rasam, Dal, brinjal curry, Matar, Dahi, papad, plain rice & achaar.

The Rasam was excellent. It was spicy, hot, robust in taste – loved it and rate it 4.25/5

Dal was excellent. The grains of the dal were independent but soft & very nice. Loved the amazing balance of taste and nice flavor of tadka. Rate it 4.5/5

Brinjal curry very good. Once again, it was very balanced in terms of seasoning, had a very good taste. Rate it 4.25/5

Matar was a local preparation. Dry, not so spicy, not hot, yet very tasty. The grains of matar were very soft , yet they managed to retain ther shape. Rate the dish 4.25/5.

We also ordered a Mediterranean platter. It had falafel, hummus, salad, fries, wrap.

The hummus was good. Balance of taste was perfect. However the amount of olive oil in it was suboptimal, thus spoiling the texture a bit. Very good hummus I must say, specially if compared to  restaurants of this level. Rate it 4.25/5

I don’t know how fries made their way into the mediterranean platter. The fries were tasty but withered and non crunchy. The basic fun of munching on fries was compromised. Rate the fries 2/5.

The falafel was as good as they cud get. Crisp on the top and tight within. Very good to taste. Loved munching on these. Rate this 4.25/5.

Overall rating of food at Mango Tree averages out to 4.1/5. I wud reconsider going there if in the vicinity of Virupaksha temple …………………. Pls share ur experience as well.