Durvankur Dining Hall
Restaurants — By Kadambari on October 21, 2009 at 3:40 PM
Pune has a plethora of restaurants that offer delectable food items. The restaurant that we are featuring today has already gained much acclaim and is very popular among punekars. Durvankur Dining Hall has been serving scrumptious Maharashtrian, Gujarati and Marwari mix thalis for quite some time now. Located on Tilak road, near Hatti Ganapati Chowk, the dining hall serves unlimited thalis that make for a truly traditional and wholesome meal.
The building of Durvankur does not have a glamorous look and it appears like a normal building. When you walk up the first set of stairs, you come across a huge kitchen which occupies the first floor. Take a peek inside and you’ll spot the huge utensils used for the preparation of the various delicacies served at the restaurant. Walk up another level and you are greeted with a cacophony of voices coming from the huge seating hall. If you happen to walk in over the weekend, you might stumble into a huge crowd of people outside the hall waiting to be seated.
If you are a first time visitor, there is a good chance you might not be impressed with the ambiance. Durvankur certainly doesn’t boast of a good décor and the normal chair and table set up remotely resembles the setting of a pangat at a marriage hall. But the restaurant scores really high when it comes to food.
Durvankur dining hall is not like other restaurants where you are offered a menu card and asked to choose your dishes. Here the thali to be served on each day is fixed. The menu changes every day and offers more variety on weekends. The moment you take a seat, the staff will start serving you all the specialties of the day. The thali constitutes of three to four types of vegetables, dahi vada, koshimbir (salad), pickle, chutney, papad, dal, curd, thalipeeth and sweets. If you are not a puri person, you can opt for the chapatti instead. At times, they also serve jwarichi bhakri. Rice includes khichdi kadi and the typical puneri waranbhath with tup.
The sweets served change with the menu with the exception of Jalebi which is served everyday because of its popularity. Depending upon the menu and the day of the week, you can try the poran poli, halwa, basundi, gulab jamun, shrikhand, Anjeer rabadi and many such lip smacking sweets.
The service here is quick and the waiters at Durvankur make sure your plate is never empty. And as this diner follows an unlimited thali system, you can eat to your heart’s content. Moreover, the place is hygienic and clean and also very economically priced.
So if you wish to try an authentic Maharashtrian thali, head straight for Durvankur Dining Hall to enjoy traditional Maharashtrian recipes.
