The Lake view Restaurant

There are days, and days,

This was one day that we decide to just drive down where without a travel agenda, and we landed onNH17. Somewhere as we reached Insuli  again on an impulse we decided to go to Sawantwadi. For years the road was familiar along the Bombay-Goa road route but with the new high way we seem to get muddled  there were very helpful road signs that said “Vedi Vakdi valni” which literally translated to mad crooked turning followed by the caution to drive carefully.

As our stomach began to rumble we hit the lake of Sawantwadi. On its banks lovely subtle elegant dress shops and very discreet clean eating places. The eateries interestingly included Nepali Dhaba’s and north-eastern cuisine one particular Dhaba was totally dedicated to momo’s.

It was a Sunday, and lunch time so Sawantwadi was at its siesta boating seemed to have stopped for a while, and we did not know about shilpagram which is one of the tourist spots out there.

By this time since all of us hungry we entered this veg Joint “Lake view” the place is run by a women Mamta Patankar, she personally is in the kitchen supervising the cooking and she has two women assisting her, and one to do the wash up. It was amazing to see this Lady handling the Thali deftly with a great smile on her face. She let us into her kitchen and  between you and me, the kitchen was quite clean for the  incessant flow of guests and the varied cooking she was up to. Her assistants very neatly dressed, hair tied there was something so inviting about it all. What was most interesting to me was there was no lingering smell of food that is invariably there in busy restaurants.

The menu on the display was very interesting, but since we did not want the standard shetty hotel cosmopolitan fare we decided to opt for “saadi amras thali” we were assured by the steward was a typical Maharashtrian fare.

Two roti’s one bhindi bhaji, one typically  Maharashtrian  batata bhaji, chana tonak, amti, solkadi and aamras, Of course chaas.The cuisine reflects the blendof the rice coconut cuisine of the coast and the amti-poli staple of highland Maharashtra. The roti’s were soft, hot and very homemade. It was worth hour’s drive.

Maybe if we had planned the trip we would have looked up the shilpagram, or driven further down to experience snorkeling and seabed walking all the same there was something really enchanting about this drive, and discovering  the lake view area.