Hotel Gavran Kolhapuri

I must admit I'm not a big fan of Kolhapuri cuisine, thanks to my average experiences until I visited Gavran Kolhapuri. Some of my work colleagues highly recommended this place and I finally made it on a Friday afternoon.

As was advised, we booked a table in advance. It's a tiny home run joint, very close to the EON IT park. This place is quite a hit amongst the IT crowd of EON. A Kolhapuri family run this tiny joint from their verandah! The family is completely involved in the cooking process of all the dishes on the menu, hence the homely touch to all their food. The masalas are home made.

It's a tiny garden-verandah kind of alfresco area with 4-5 tiny tables, neatly and sufficiently spaced out. We went for a veg thali and a chicken thali. The chicken thali came with a choice of 2 'bhakris' or 3 'chapatis' and rice alongwith egg masala, Kolhapuri style chicken,' tambada' and 'pandhara rassa'. We were also served some complimentary onion-lemon salad. The veg thali came with a rustic style dal and a chana masala.



The chicken curry was quite impressive. The masala had a burst of Kolhapuri flavours but was surprisingly not too high on the chilli content. Lots of coconut and authentic Kolhapuri masalas blended into a thick gravy with lots of succulent chicken pieces. How I wish they had used country('gavran') chicken instead! 

All my previous experiences of Kolhapuri cuisine made me believe that Kolhapuri food means highly spicy, oily and hot food. But this lunch certainly changed my perception completely and introduced me to some authentic food from the region.  The 'Sol Kadhi' that we ordered for, was served chilled and went very well with the food. I loved the Sol Kadhi! The 'tambada rassa' was bright red in color and was quite rich in terms of flavors and spices. The 'pandhra rassa' was it's milder cousin - white in color and very subtle in taste. The egg masala was pretty average and tasted too much of masala. It consisted of boiled egg halves in a thick spicy gravy.

Overall the food was pretty good. For those who like Kolhapuri cuisine and work/live in this part of the city, do give this place a shot. For others, you may drop by only if you're in the area. It's not worth a drive from distant places. Nevertheless, once you're here, be rest assured of home cooked taste :)