In a nutshell:

A nice small restaurant that serves very good Maharastrian nonvegetarian & vegetarian food in Pune.

Address & other details:  Maratha Samrat

Meal for 2: 800 onwards

Cuisine type :  vegetarian & nonvegetarian

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:

We came to know of this restaurant from the social media. So decided to pay a visit.

The restaurant is in two floors – small areas with 4 tables each & also an outdoor seating area. There were chairs near the entrance for waiting.

/

The walls are adorned with framed photographs of Maratha heroes and paintings depicting Marathi people.

The menu card is long & explanatory and had pictures too.

Service was good. The guys were nice but I wish they knew their dishes well.

Food in general was very good but we found another one that was better ….post on that coming up soon.

Detailed description – in case u hv the time to njoy reading:
Keema masala papad – conceptually it sounded interesting, so ordered it out of sheer curiosity. It was a papad base with chopped fresh tomatoes, onions and coriander leaves. Interspersed among this was small dollops of mutton keema. This was then topped with sev and chaat masala.

The mutton did not make its presence felt at all. In a blind test I would not have understood that mutton was there. In this case, with full knowledge and even after seeing the keema, the mutton chose to remain mute. It was however pretty chatpata and good to eat. Concept gone wrong or bad execution of a good concept. Rate it 3.5/5.

We ordered a veggie thali – Pithla Bhakhri Meal. It had one bhakhri, pithla, a red gravy with sev on top , dahi, solkadi and papad.

The bhakhri was good. I have a bias towards coarse textured breads. So I guess I liked it even more. Most metro city restaurants serve this with a good amount of ghee or butter on top. Here it was served as it is and I loved it. Rate it 4.25/5

Pithla was very good – way better than the one we had at Shabree the previous night. While pithla conceptually is smooth, these guys had put some crushed nuts and full jeera. The flavours were enjoyable. Rate it 4/5.

Red gravy with sev was excellent. It was hot, robust, rustic and had a full bodied flavour and was very good to taste. Sev added to texture. Rate it 4.5/5.

Solkadi was excellent. It had the right amount of kokum that gave it strength, right amount of coconut milk that balanced it and perfect quantity of spices and seasoning. Rate it 4.5/5.

We next moved on to kala mutton thali. We asked the server ‘what is kala mutton’. He said ‘mutton jo kala Hota hai’.

The quality of meat in kala mutton was mixed and it seemed they used meat of larger goats ( as compared to the ones at Hotel Gavran Kolhapur). Some of the pieces were fibrous and chewy while others were very soft and layered with fat. Rate the meat 3.25/5.

The dry gravy was grainy in nature, unlike in the mutton sukka of gavran kohlapur. The kala mutton dry gravy was a bit on the face too but very tasty. Rate the gravy 4.25/5

Overall rating of kala mutton averages out to 3.75/5. Directionally the dish seemed to b very good but I guess there was an execution error.

Keema was outstanding. It did not seem to be the hand minced variety but still managed to taste very good and retain its intense meaty flavour. Flavours of spices also made their presence felt. Rate it 4.5/5.

Pandhra rassa was very good but the one at hotel gavran kohlapuri was way better. The one at Maratha Samrat was thinner in consistency and had a much subtle flavour. Rate it 4/5.

Tamra rassa was less on the face, less hot, less spicy and less tastier , less flavourful than the one at hotel gavran kohlapuri. Loved it as it is and rate it 3.75/5.

We then tried mutton biryani. It was very good. Long independent grains of rice that were soft and had incorporated flavours of both spices and meat. The rice was not greasy but soft. The meat was soft, yumm and flavourful. Rate it 4.25/5.

We also tried Chaas ( tak). I loved it – unidirectionally sour – it had almost no salt to balance the sourness . Some people might like to njoy it with a tinge of salt. It did not have masala or boondi in it. I think it is a great drink to have after a fiercely spicy meal – helps in dousing the fire. If u want a tastier variety, try the tak at garden vada pav stall. Rate the tak at Maratha Samrat 4.25/5.

We ordered gavran chicken sukka also. Gavran means ‘from the village’ – this refers to desi Murgi ( country chicken, not farm bred). We had very fond memories of gavran chicken from kalim’s moonlight.

They gave us 8 chicken pieces. We ate one each somehow and returned the rest ( paid for it but did not eat it). No one bothered to ask why we were returning. Here is why we did that – coz the country fowl meat was over refrigerated and had started smelling fowl!!!!

Rate the meat 0/5.

The gravy was pretty good. It was daanedaar, spicy, hot and flavourful – not the best ever but very good. Rate it 4.25/5.

Overall rating of gavran chicken averages out to 2.1/5.

They do not sell desserts. So we had to give it a pass.

Overall rating of food & beverages at Maratha SAmrat averages out to 3.9/5

I think I will revisit to try the other mutton dishes and fish dishes. What’s ur thought? Pls share in the comments box.