In a nutshell:
Loved eating at this restaurant that served consistently good food over a few meals, in a small town that houses a historical marvel.
Address & other details: Badami court
Meal for 2: Rs 300 onwards.
Cuisine type : vegetarian & non vegetarian
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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:
Badami, is a town in Karnataka, that was the regal capital of the Badami Chalukyas from 540 to 757 AD. 1500 years back they built amazing rock cut temples and other structural temples. For the uninitiated, rock cut temple is a natually formed hillock carved into a temple – monolithic.
We went to this location few months back & stayed at Hotel Badami court.
While the hotel was actually in the middle of nowhere, it was few kilometers away from the historical site. In absence of anything around, we ended up having all meals here.
The restaurant of the Hotel was named Pulakeshi , after a famous Monarch of that name.
The Dining hall of the restaurant was neat & clean, simple décor & had wooden furniture.
The staff members were just not the professionally trained kinds & that is why they wud smile only when they wud b amused, they wud be nice to us as fellow humans when we were nice to them. I really loved our interactions with the guys at the restaurant.
Food in general was good every time & at times we came across some outstanding stuff as well.
Detailed description – in case u hv the time to NJOY reading:
Day 1 we wanted to try something which was something she remembered having eaten in Karnataka as a child. Pure nostalgic reasons we ordered it – gobhi manchurian.
As u wud know by this time, Manchurian is an Indian invented dish & people in China have never heard of it. To read more about it, pls click here: Manchurian
Needless to say Gobhi manchurian is a hardcore Indian food.
The gobhi manchurian at Pulakeshi was chatpata to taste. It was quite hot too & somewhat oily as well. The good thing was that the gobhi was crunchy & hence the dish tasted quite good. Rate this 3/5
We also tried Fried chicken kababs. These had a coating on them similar to Andhra fish fry. The coating ensured that the chicken were juicy inside. Seasoning of the kabab was perfect. Loved munching on the chicken kababs. Rate them 4/5
For maincourse we had yellow dal. Awesome it was. Not on the face but it had good flavors of dal, spices & it was a bit hot as well. Loved it & rate it 4.5/5
We requested on local style Chicken curry in our next meal. This was excellent. They asked if we want spicy or hot. We said ‘make it the way it is served at homes’. What came was delicious. Hot, rustic, robust, spicy but YUMM. The chicken pieces were also very good. Rate this dish 4.5/5
In another meal we had Baingan masala. This was bringal cube pieces made into a curry local style. The brinjal itself was not so good. It had too much seeds. However the masalas were nice & that ended up making the curry quite good (after throwing away the excess seed parts). Rate this dish 3/5
We also ordered Masala Chicken curry ( I remember waiting guy saying this). This chicken curry had full spices, was rustic, quite robust & hot as well.
The chicken was very soft & was tasty too. The chicken & gravy had been cooked together. Rate it 4.5/5
We also tried egg curry. They had fried the boiled eggs before cutting it in two & pouring it into two. Good , thick, gravy, flavors of spices intact. Rate it 4.25/5
The dish that was simplest & so good was poori aloo that we had for breakfast. Outstanding, simple aloo ki subzi tempered with curry leaves. Awesome. Rate it 4.5/5
Poori was very soft & nice to taste , with the curry as well as just like that.
Overall rating of food at Pulakeshi Dining Room averages out to 4/5
In summary I wud say that these guys have a 2 page menu but whatever we had there had a basic minimum standard – hard to find in faraway places like Badami. In case u r in town to see the amazing creations of 1500 years back, u might wanna pay a visit to Badami Court to try some of their good food.