Udaipur
Udaipur is called the ‘City of Lakes’ as this city is surrounded by beautiful lakes. This city is situated in the southernmost part of Rajasthan near the Gujarat border. A tourist destination place that is known for its history, culture, and scenic locations.
There are seven lakes surrounding the city out of which the main are Fateh Sagar Lake, Lake Pichola, Swaroop Sagar Lake, and Doodh Talai Lake. Besides lakes, Udaipur is also known for its historic forts and Udaipur palaces, museums, galleries, natural locations, and gardens as well as for architectural temples.
Some of the main attractive places that we visited in Udaipur city are:
It is an artificial freshwater lake created in the year 1362 AD. This is one of the most beautiful places to visit in Udaipur, especially the sunrise and sunset views. This lake has four main islands namely Jag Niwas, Jag Mandir, Mohan Mandir, and Arsi Vilas.
Boating in Lake Pichola is a different fun over there. Timings for boating are morning from 9 a.m to evening at 6 p.m with the price rate from Rs. 400 to 600 for adults and Rs. 200/- for children. Views of sunrise and sunset are mesmerizing especially when you look into the water. It turns blue in the morning, yellow in the afternoon and orange in the evening. During night time, a reflection of the palaces in the water is an eye-catchy view.
2. Fateh Sagar Lake:
This lake gives you a feel of the three main natural things: lake, hills, and the flora. Surrounded by the hills, this gives you the best view and definitely, you want to spend every morning and evening time over there. This place has millions of visitors daily out of the which majority are of the local people, this shows the attractive behavior of this place.
Still, water which has lustrous shine and even the flowing water gives you the wave-like feeling. You can easily spend a number of hours there. You can also get varieties of food by the side and some fun things for your kids as well. People usually choose cold coffee and tea as an accompaniment at this place. This is all about Udaipur lakes, now let’s move to some other places-
3. Saheliyon Ki Bari :
The name of this place elaborates its meaning clearly. At an early age, queens along with their friends used to spend full time at this place. From morning bathing until every activity, this place has a special place for everything. Lots of fountains you will find here. A small museum KALANGAN is there which shows how the queens and her friends used to enjoy it.
4. TRADITIONAL KHANA RESTAURANT : The name of this restaurant serves its purpose well. They serve the traditional food of Rajasthan. Although this restaurant is not old, still it gains popularity up to a certain level that people especially visit Udaipur to have food from this restaurant.
Concept Behind this Restaurant: I had words with the owner of this Restaurant. He is a very simple and down to earth person and explain me each and everything in detail. He belongs to the Royal Mewar family. They used to have a typical traditional meal every day to which they are very much fond of. But when he used to visit someplace, he found that the people start forgetting their traditional food. As a food lover, he decided to have his restaurant which serves their traditional food worldwide.
About the Ambience: Interior wise this place is very much simple, showing the culture of Rajasthan on the walls. They have soft, comfortable, and Mughal style sofas to sit on.
About the Food: The owner of this restaurant explain to me about the different food served in Thali. Thali includes 2 tikkis, 4 types of chutneys, 2 dal, kadi, 3 sabzis, buttermilk, bati, puri, khichdi, and 2 sweets. You can repeat any of the items if you want. You can order any other things like moong dal chilla, besan chilla, khichdi separately from the menu but as this place is famous for its Traditional Thali so I suggest you have it at least once. They serve a complimentary drink to all their guests.
Description About the Thali: Chutneys:
Amchur Chutney: made with 25 different spices like gond, black pepper, amchur, ginger powder, etc. It is having a unique taste neither too sour nor too sweet.
Lehsun Chutney: Garlic chutney is famous and mandatory part of Rajasthani cuisine and this dish also serves best in taste.
Hari Chutney: Made with coriander leaves and green chilies. This dish is a bit spicy and you will love it if you are a spicy food lover.
Meethi Chutney: As the name indicates, this one is sweet and will give relief to your tongue after having spicy chutney.
In the beginning, they will serve you moong dal tikkis and advice you to eat it with Amchur and Hari chutney.
Kadhi: They serve plain hot kadhi which is not too thick like we have in Uttar Pradesh. They boil it for 8 hours(4 hours at the night and 4 hours in the morning). They named it 100 ukhale ki kadhi which means kadhi which boils about 100 times. I had one of the best kadhis over there.
Sabzis: Detailing about the vegetables
Gatte ki sabzi: It is the saying of the owner of a restaurant that gatta is perfect if it breaks with your lips, not with tooth, and no doubt the gatta sabji was lip smacking and I never had this much soft gatta before. Curry was having balanced flavors of spices and it was not too oily as I have seen in many places.
Chakki ki Sabji: This is made of wheat flour. They hung the dough of wheat flour for about 2-3 hours so the excess flour shreds off and then cook the remaining dough in curries for about 4 hours. It gives me a feeling of kind of chunks which was too smooth and melts in the mouth quickly.
Kersar Ki Sabji: Never heard about the sabji of herbs. Yes, this dish contains 3 herbs and 2 fruits(you cannot identify). The cooking time of this is 3 hours and its shelf life is about 1 month. They add mango pickle in it to increase its shelf life.
Moving ahead towards pulses: They serve Chana Dal (Split Bengal Gram) and Urad Dal (Split and dehusked Black gram). when you have a bite of these lentils, it was different from the regular taste and the logic behind this is Chana dal cooked in an iron wok (Lohe ki kadhai) and Urad dal cooked in Black Handi (Kali Handi). They did not boil the lentil, they simply cook in the mentioned utensils and tempered it.
Puri: Here comes the specialty: Jhakolma Puri (name of the puri) it is made with a special kind of wheat flour of which they make dough of flowing consistency. Above that, the most interesting thing while making this puri is they did not use a rolling pin to roll it. They roll it by their hands. Now, only 3 specialists left who can make such unique puri.
Pakode ki khichdi: Spicy mixture of dal(pulses) and chawal(rice) along with several Pakoras(fritters) is the definition of this dish. They suggest you have it with kadhi as it balances the spicy flavor of khichdi and you can have it easily.
Sweets: They serve you Besan ki chikki and Churma ladoo. Both the things are at the peak of softness and has a balanced flavor of sweetness in it.
Last but not least, their Thali is incomplete without the Smoked Buttermilk serving in an earthen glass(Kulhad) which having smoky charcoal flavor in it.
Interesting things about this place:
- The staff over there will explain to you about each and every dish. They will serve food step by step and also tell you what to eat with what dish.
- The size of bati they serve to you is 3 kg which they did not cook in any vessel. It is simply get cooked in ashes but they will serve it in pieces. Also, they offer a prize if someone eats full bati.
- They serve food in leafy plates and bowls as they are following the concept of eco-friendly.
- All the preparations are done over there in cow ghee.
- They will not give a spoon. You have to eat with your hands. The spoon shown in the image above is for my daughter.
They also have wide varieties of sweets like Chule ki rabdi, Danedaar Badaam Halwa, Dry fruit Chikki(with dry fruits and honey only), etc.
If you can see the so long menu, you will wonder that they serve you this much food in Rs. 650/- only and not only this the food is unlimited.
Well, I can only say if you are planning to visit Udaipur, then add this place to your list for sure otherwise you will have regression of missing such unique, pure, and delicious food.
5. KHAMMA GHANI : The two main things which attract the visitors towards this restaurant are the Name of this place and lake view from your sitting place.
Yes, this restaurant is open-air as well as a covered lakeside restaurant. As it is by the side of the lake so this place is having a cool environment still they have a separate area if you want to have an Ac facility.
About the Ambience: They have a different concept which gives you the different option of having food over there like you can sit in an AC room, you can sit by the side of the lake under the roof, you can sit on the terrace area or you can even sit in the garden as well. This is completely your choice. We choose for under the roof lakeside area. Simple, cool, and attractive ambiance with not of much tantrums.
About the Food: They have Rajasthani food, Indian, Continental, Veg, Non-veg almost every type of food. They did not serve thali as we firstly asked for Thali then we decided to go for Ala Carte. We ordered Cream of Tomato Soup, French Fries (for my little munchkin), Paneer Butter Masala, and Tandoori Plain Roti.
They will ask you about the level of spiciness as per your comfort level. Paneer vegetable gravy was very lip-smacking. Garlic flavor in it was on the top. It was a different kind of Paneer Butter Masala from the others I had earlier. About the Roti (Chapati), it was super soft means you can easily chew it even without the butter.
All I can say, a crowded place yet cool and calm as most of the visitors over there are from abroad.
All the things in the menu list are pocket-friendly and you don’t have to think much about the prices. You can easily order 3-4 items in your budget.
Last but not least, if you want to explore a different variety of food at one place along with the lakeside eye-soothing view and cost-friendly, GO for this restaurant.
6. THE Q HOTEL :
This is the hotel where we stayed during our visit to Udaipur. It is a 4-star hotel and no doubt this hotel serves their best in everything.
From breakfast to dinner, housekeeping, etc everything was perfect. Rooms are quite good in space and amazing from the hill’s viewpoint.
They had a different menu of breakfast every day and the taste was too good means the combination of taste and spices was so perfect.
They have ala carte also. We had lunch over there on our last day and we were fully satisfied with the quality and quantity of food they served to us. One most interesting thing which definitely raises the rating for this place is my daughter ate nowhere in Udaipur except the Aloo Paranthas served in the hotel. Even I tasted it, means you can feel like you have prepared it at home. Perfect filling, the balance of spices, curd, and pickle as accompaniments, and many more compliments to offer.
All I can say if you want something good in your medium budget then you can opt for this option for your stay.
*Name of this Hotel has now changed as Mango Q. You can get more information about this hotel on Udaipur Hotels.
So this is not enough about the this beautiful City of Lakes, we will definitely explore some new and interesting things and food places on our next trip. If you already had a visit to Udaipur then do share your experience with the food photographs in the comments.
Hope you liked this blog. Please share your reviews with us in the comments below. Your suggestions are always welcome. Do not forget to share your food pictures with us on our Instagram page using @aromaofk or #aromaofk
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