Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Fun Week in Pune

Sunset at KhandalaThe New Year celebrations were very different this time. After so much long-distance travel in 2007, we decided to spend these end-of-the-year holidays in Pune and even invited our extended family. The week was much fun -- lot of people at home (which rarely happens now-a-days) and many different things to eat.

Among the fun stuff people brought home last week: A variety of Gajak from Bareilly (a sesame-based candy popular in North India during winter months), unique sweets from Belgaum in Karnataka (one of them called Karadantu which I tasted for the first time), cheese and sparkling Prosecco wine from Switzerland.

We also took a short trip to Khandala watching the sun set in the picturesque Ghats for the last time in 2007. Even the vada pav and ragda patties at Kailash Resort's food-court seemed extra-tasty: must have been the festive atmosphere.

Mainland ChinaRestaurants in Pune wore a festive look through-out this week and some even had special 'Celebration Menus' for the holidays.

Thanks to a new notification by the city administration in Pune, New Year parties were allowed to go on all the way to 5AM. Almost everyone who loves partying hard had a rollicking time this year!

11 comments:

Unknown said...

soo, howz Gajak of Bareilly ???

Anonymous said...

The top picture looks beautiful - is it yours? So many links to follow... I'm out for reading! ;)

Anonymous said...

@sumit: Heh! Gajak is a favorite snack item. This one was particularly good, also because of the different types I hadn't eaten before (each of them has a different proportion of sesame and some use a sugar base others use jaggery).

@zhu: Yes, both pictures are mine. The top one is the sun setting down over the hills in Khandala on the 31st. Khandala is a hill resort very close to Pune (about an hour's drive). Re: the many links, ha ha...we aim to inform too!

Unknown said...

Yumm.. a sweet beginning to the new year!

Wish you a happy new year ahead! with more travels and food and fun :)

CAO- Chef Azura othman said...

Someone had a good time!I often heard about Pune from watching Tamil movies ,it must be really nice there.
bareilly ,I think I had tasted that one and yes it is very good.
Happy new year. :o)

Lakshmi said...

glad that you had a great time..sunsets seem to bethe flavour of the season..this looks beautiful..is it in loonavala or khandala ?

Anonymous said...

@smita: Thank you!

@azazura: Cool! Tamil movies seem to be popular in many East Asian countries -- probably because of many Tamil migrants from India in those countries.

Anonymous said...

@backpakker: This one is Sunset point at Khandala.

Anonymous said...

You tickled my sweet tooth.
I've tasted the Indore Gajak, nice to know there is a Bareilly variety too.

BTW, Karadantu from Gokak is most famous, but I guess its not too far from Belgaum, and so I guess it should be equally good.
Wonder if you also tasted Kunda from Belgaum and Dharwar pedha. People always get hooked.

Sank said...

Sounds like fun. Having all that family around, at least in my family, can go either way sometimes :)
This year we sort of "discovered" prosecco as well, I much prefer it over champagne.
Parties until 5:00 am? Thats about 6 hours longer than I made it on New Years Eve.

Anonymous said...

@jagadish: Thank you so much! I had forgotten the name of the other sweet. It was Kunda indeed! And the Karadantu said it was from Gokak (which I thought was in Belgaum?).

@sank: Re: family, I agree it can! :-)