Pune food guide

As a student in Pune, I have had (and still have for 6 more months!) the good fortune of discovering the many little eateries that exist in the confusing and winding lanes of the city. I have decided to share my foodie journey in Pune with the readers. I will go through my favorite eateries classified price and cuisine wise. Don’t worry if the classification doesn’t always make sense, but I assure you it should be helpful all the same!

 Another thing to note, I’m not covering chain restaurants like KFC, McDonalds and pizza places. This review is dedicated to the little one-of-a-kind places in Pune, which cater to all pockets, cuisines and have made my stay there truly memorable! (Yea, I’m a biiigg foodie!)

 I spent my first 3 years living at a hostel on Karve Road, opposite the gate of SNDT College. So let me begin my foodie journey right there.

 Snack places in the Deccan part of town

 Vada Pav Tapri

Right at the entrance of the lane behind SBI Erandawane branch, there are many tapris that serve the cheapest and most delicious food! Especially for us poor hostelites, these tapris were a boon. Almost every evening we would walk down there in bathroom chappals to get some vada pav (Rs. 5), Sabudana vada (Rs. 6 for 2) and Kanda Bhajji (Onion pakodas).

 Canal Road chaat place (forget the name!)

The canal road behind Swad Restaurant on Law College Road houses a very popular chaat place. If I’m not wrong, he only opens in the evenings, and there is always a huge crowd milling around, waiting to eat bhel puri and SPDP.

(Note: SPDP is a special chaat item, so named only in Pune. It stands for Sev Potato Dahi Puri, I think!!)

Personally, I wasn’t impressed with the chaat there. But it is phenomenally popular, going by the large crowd it draws, so maybe it is my taste which is screwed up!

 Zaika etc

In a lane off Senapati Bapat Road (first left after symbiosys) there are many tapris including Zaika. Zaika mainly serves cold and hot coffee, and street Chinese food. Next to it, there is a vada pav stall, chai stall and a Kachhi Dabeli cart…another good hangout for students to snack in the evening.

 ILS and NCC Canteens

Apart from these little stalls, the ILS canteen and NCC canteens are also good and cheap places to grab snacks and meals.

 Kollage (formerly Suruchi)

This is the haunt of ILS students. It is in a small lane opposite the Coffee Day on Law College Road. Its just what students want – a quiet place where they can leisurely hangout, read, eat, and work on their computers. The food is alright, nothing out of the world, but cheap hence good enough!

At the entrance of this lane, there is another stall which serves good vada pav and chai.

 Casa Lolo

It’s a new place which has opened up exactly opposite the entrance to Kamla Nehru Park. They serve Shawarma rolls and Falafal rolls. Being a huge fan of shawarma, I was just happy to find aplace serving it in Pune, leave aside the fact that they put in copious amounts of mayo instead of hummus!

Alert: the shawarma is chicken, just to warn the vegetarians, and the ones who assume its beef!

 Café Good luck

This is located at Good luck chowk, beginning of Fergusson College (FC) road. This is one of my favourite places to eat at, at any time of the day! We often try and catch breakfast here…they serve good egg dishes. The bun maska you get here is the best ive ever tasted in my life. (ie the bun! Amul butter is amul butter!)

It’s a Parsi joint, which explains the amazing bun. They sure have a way with bread. This place has very good Indian food too, so lunch and dinner is equally enjoyable here. The chicken is really good, and reasonably priced. And the caramel pudding is also a speciality of theirs!

I am sure gonna miss Good luck when I leave Pune!

 Vaishali

Located opposite Fergusson College, it is the most famous snack place in all of Pune. A favourite among Fergusson students for decades, it is always crowded with students and older crowd, day and night. In fact, I have never been seated there without a ten-minute wait. They serve south Indian snacks and chaat items. Coming from Bangalore, I wasn’t thrilled with the south Indian snacks there, but I will admit that they are better than most south Indian stuff you get in Pune. It is not very cheap, the dosa I like to have costs Rs.45!!

 Wadeshwar

This place is close to Sagar arcade on FC road. It serves pretty much similar fare as Vaishali, but the places is done up nicely, and has far less crowd. This makes it a lot easier to sit there at leisure. They do have some good chole bhature, and corn patty, and a few more items out of the ordinary. And it is reasonably priced.

 Kothrud side

 Durga

This place is most famous for the Cold Coffee. Cold coffee is a very commonly available item, hugely popular among the student community in Pune. They also serve pav bhaaji, egg bhurji and some limited other food items.

I simply LOVE the cold coffee at Durga. At 8 bucks, it’s a steal, especially on the HOT summer days in Pune. Durga is located on Paud Road, close to Bhartiya Vidyapeeth and MIT.

 Ice cream House

This little place, located in Karishma society, Kothrud, is best known for its amazing Cad(B) (Cadbury’s Bitter) Milkshake. It is the real stuff, thick and creamy! Other milkshakes and ice creams are also available, but I could never think beyond Cad(B)!

 Camp side

 JJ Garden Vada Pav

Behind Dorabjee’s Department store, there is a park called JJ Garden, opposite which stand a vada pav guy, who serves delicious vada pavs! They are slightly different from the various other vada pavs I have mentioned above!

 Marz-o-rin

This is an old Pune restaurant, a favourite among my parents generation also. It is not very cheap today, but they do carry a lot of yummy snacks, milkshakes and pastries. Located on MG Road, it has a nice balcony where you can sit and enjoy the view of Pune’s bustling main street.

The sandwiches and burgers are good, and also the baked dish with macaroni.

 Oh and right opposite this, Budhani, a potato chips merchant deserves special mention. His chips are sold in packets all over town in retail stores, but if you’re walking here and they happen to be making the chips, you just cannot resist the aroma of chips being fried! These are the crispest and most wonderful chips you have ever tasted!

 Burger King

Not to be confused with the famous international chain (although the lawyer in me is surprised that they have had this name for so many years!), this is a small little place tucked away at the end of East street. They serve the most delicious burgers ever. It is cheap as hell, and hence hugely loved by students. Their “king beef” burger, truly king sized, seems to be most popular, priced at Rs. 35 or so.

They also have amazing posters of old-time rock n roll stars including the Beatles, and Jimi Hendrix. They have another branch, between High Spritis lounge and ABC Farms. Koregaon Park.

 Since this post was dedicated to snack places, my next post will be about meal places! Do let me know whether there are other important places I have missed. Pune has so many such places that I know I cannot even hope to know all, but these are my favorites in the areas that I have been moving around in Pune. 

Food for thought!

I watched the latest episode of “How I Met Your Mother”, and in it, the gang was wondering where to eat dinner. Ted suggested Chinese, to which Barney replied “I don’t like Chinese”. Ted then suggested Indian, to which Barney again replies, “I just said, I don’t like Chinese!”. Then Ted suggests Mexican, to which Barney has the same answer!

Anyway, they shoot down Italian, Sushi and Pizza as well. Finally they decided to go out for a burger, the “Greatest Burger in New York” (or so Marshall claims!)

 The point is that no cuisine can really be called “American”, can it? It is either Italian(pasta, pizza), Chinese, Mexican (tacos, enchiladas), Indian, or Japanese (sushi).

So this gets me thinking, what can be called American food? Steaks, burgers and sandwiches? As far as I read online, hamburgers and sandwiches have their origin in Europe. Then again, the history of America is short, and most things have their origin in Europe,via the migrants who moved to North America from Europe. 

There are a couple of eateries in Bangalore that claim to serve American cuisine. They just serve stuff like steaks, burgers, and fries mostly. KFC, McDonalds, Marry Brown, TGIF (though they also do serve Mexican I think), Subway…

 So what really is American food? Next post!