Jaliyan, Ahmedabad

Jaliyan,
412 A & B, 4th Floor,
Sheetal Varsha Mall,
Satellite,
Ahmedabad
079 40029004, 079 40029003

I've finally found a good Gujarati Thali restaurant close to home, for the days that we don't want to drive all the way to Agashiye. The reasonable prices don't hurt either.

Jaliyan is located at Sivranjini Crossroads in Sheetal Varsha Mall. Their biggest problem is their location. The mall is completely empty, except for a couple of shops and the mall is in very bad condition - broken floors, semi functioning lifts, a bad smell, badly constructed floors, perpetual noise etc.

But if you are willing to brave these inconveniences, the food served at Jaliyan is definitely worth it.

Jaliyan offers 2 types of Gujarati thalis. One for 200/- and one for 325/-.

The 200/- thali came with 2 sweets - kesar pista basundi (not a patch on Agashiye's basundi) and puranpolis (my favourite dish of this meal). 2 farsaans - Mix pakodas/bhajiyas (potato, onion, methi gotha, stuffed chillies, onion, batata wada) and Chinese Wontons (just in shape, it was a thick maida batter, with a tasty filling though) with sweet chutney and green chutney. Bundi Raita and a corn kakdi Capsicum salad. Both the raita and the salad were excellent.

For the main course, we had Baingan bharta (spicy smoke brinjal pate), Undhiyu (baked winter vegetables), Rasawala Bataka (curried potatoes), Mixed Kathol (beans of various kinds), Gujarathi kadhi (curd based gravy), Gujarati dhal (lentils) and phulkas and bajra rotlas (with ghee and gud).

The meal was rounded up with plain rice, khichdi (average), lasun ki chutney (garlic chutney), papad, chaas (buttermilk - very good) and mineral water.

The other thali has all of this and also pineapple juice, an extra sweet, mix utthapams as an extra farsaan, theplas and bhakris, Rajasthani Dhal bati, something called rai marcha and ice cream too.

Even though we had the simpler thali, it was extremely satisfying and filling. I would rank Jaliyan second (after Agashiye) amongst the Gujarati thalis that we have had in Ahmedabad. Definitely worth visiting. They also have a takeaway lunch for 130/- if you need to carry a packed lunch away (but this would be limited quantities)

The ambiance is much nicer than Govardhan and it wasn't overcrowded either, so service was very attentive and at a very comfortable pace. The interiors are quite fancy for a restaurant that only serves thalis, even thought the place mats were fabric covered in plastic, the place still has a slightly classier feel to it, once inside.

Rating : 4 / 5

Knife & Fork , Ahmedabad

Knife & Fork ,
3, Rivera Arcade,
Near Union Bank,
Opposite HDFC Bank,
Prahlad Nagar
Ahmedabad
079 65405555, +91 8866671555

We decided to try Knife and Fork for Sunday Night home delivery as a change from Punjab King.

I ordered the Hugwani Tangdi and Purdah Biryani based on the descriptions provided and also the K&F Special chicken curry, Chusta Kebab, rotis and naan.

Our total bill came up to around 1200/- definitely higher than Punjab King (our base standard for price / quality of North Indian Food Home delivered in this area), but was it worth it?

The Hugwani Tangdi was good (chicken leg stuffed with chicken mince and baked in a tandoor), but Upper Crust's Chicken Shikhari Tangdi was juicier and tastier (same concept) However Upper Crust charges 240 for 3 pieces and Knife & Fork charges 121 for 2 tangdis. Taste wise, Upper Crust worked better for us. Pricewise, K & F is more reasonable.

The chusta kebab was chicken tikka wrapped in chicken sheekh kebab and further in a mutton sheekh kebab. The concept sounded great, but the execution was average. The chicken and mutton sheekh mince paste taste and texture was more pasty than a sheekh kebab should be and the outside was blackened a little more than we like. the overall flavour was good enough, It costs 511, but maybe because you are actually getting 3 plates of kebabs in one dish?

The K&F special chicken curry came with one huge chunk of chicken, which promptly went into the fridge as leftovers, because with all the other meat we had ordered, this large chunk looked just a little too much to bother with. There was a lot of curry and although it did taste like jazzed up butter chicken, it was still quite tasty.

The tandoori rotis were nice and soft when they came, unlike other delivery places where the rotis turn hard before they reach home. The butter naan had a lot of butter in it.

I had extremely high expectations from the Purdah Biryani given Vijayendras description on Zomato. But what finally arrived was chicken biryani with an omlette placed on on top. I'm not sure if this is what we received because it was a home delivery or whether this is how they serve it, but I was expecting eggs to be cooked on top of the rice.

The food wasn't bad, but it wasn't overwhelmingly great either, it was good enough, but Punjab King still gives us better tasting kebabs at a lower price.

We will try them again for their Chinese and then decide and maybe also try eating at the location to see if anything changes.


As I'd mentioned above,  I promised myself that I would try out their Chinese before dismissing Knife and Fork.

I'm glad I tried their Chinese, it was much better than their Indian. The soups (lemon coriander and hot & sour) were really good. The spring rolls, were really large rolls. Not bite sized pieces, but pieces that oozed stuffing (noodles, veggies and shredded chicken) when you bit into them, but the spring roll was worth the mess. Well balanced and tasty. I will defintiely visit their outlet, just to try this fresh. When it came in, in home delivery, it had come a little soggy, but the taste was very good.

The chicken hakka noodles and chicken schezwan fried rice were tasty, but a little too oily for my palate. The dragon chilli chicken was interesting.

Maybe this place, deserves an in-person visit.

Edited on 24 Jan 14 to Add:
Knife & Fork, called up all their customers a couple of days before Uttrayan (Jan 14th) to tell us that they were making a special chicken undhiyo for the festival. I ordered a kilo for around 400Rs. I was expecting something very different, but what arrived was something of a meatball curry. The gravy was very tasty, but the meatballs were a bit on the harder side.

Rating : 3.5 / 5

Punjab King, Ahmedabad

Punjab King,
12 A, Riviera Arcade,
Near Auda Garden,
Prahlad Nagar
Ahmedabad
079 30257202

Punjab King does not have a dine in facility and I normally use them as a takeaway or order in a home delivery.

My absolute favourites on the menu are their lemon paneer tikka and the veg assorted platter. Coming from a die-hard meat eater, this says a lot for the quality of these dishes. Unfortunately, Punjab King has recently discontinued the Lemon Paneer Tikka :(

The non veg kebabs are good, but it is the veg ones that stand out. The chicken achaari tikka and the mutton boti are good. Biryani is average, Curries are hit and miss.

Edited on 27 Mar 14 to Add:

Ever since Punjab King dropped their Paneer Lemon Tikka from the menu and I discovered Tandoori chicken at Ronak Fry in Sarkhej, I haven't ordered much from here.

Today though, we were in the mood for non-veg Chinese home delivery and I hadn't found an Indian-Chinese delivery in Prahladnagar, that I have liked yet. So on a chance, we decided to try the Chinese from Punjab King and we were amazed at how good it was.

The Chicken 65 tasted more like a Chilli Chicken manchurian mix, but was excellent. One of the better lollipops that we have eaten in Ahmedabad. The Chicken Chowmein and hot and sour soup were excellent too. So its settled, I now know where to order from, when the Chinese home delivery bug bites.

Rating : 4 / 5

So South, Ahmedabad

So South
12, Ground Floor,
Kalyan Towers,
Opposite Alpha One Mall Exit Gate,
Vastrapur,
Ahmedabad

+91 9825323222

I've been wanting to visit So South ever since I met Viveck at the Zomato foodie meetup. However, the heat of the afternoons in the last few months, deterred me from walking the short distance from Alpha Mall (parking lot) to So South which is opposite the exit gate. Now that I'm back in town after ages, and had to pick up groceries from Hypercity and the weather has cooled down, I immediately headed to So South for lunch after parking the car.

To my luck, Viveck was present at the location and since it was an off time (past 2:45pm), it wasn't too crowded either and so we had a nice long chat and I let him do the ordering for me. He recommended the spinach dosai and it was really yum. He said the spinach mixture had paneer as well as Britannia cheese in it and I think that, that was what made it so gloriously cheesy and tasty. I told my brain to accept it as a healthy green leafy dish, so to stop feeling guilty and just enjoy the flavours. :) This spinack mixture was so tasty, that I didn't even need the chutney or sambhar that was served along with the dosai. However, I did taste them and while I loved the coconut chutney, I personally prefer my sambhar much spicier. That said, I think the spice levels would work well for the average Ahmedabadi customer.

This dosai was really filling and I knew I couldn't even attempt to try any more of the 75+ varieties of dosais on the menu. But I had read so much about the dessert (ice cream) dosais on zomato reviews, that I simply couldn't leave without trying one.

So Viveck ordered a pineapple dosai with pineapple ice cream for me. It was a novel concept. The dosai rolled into a cone and a nice scoop of ice cream in the centre. The best part was although I was eating it as an ice cream, there was no problem of drippage from the bottom of the cone. It was different to have a salty taste (from the dosai) when eating the ice cream, but it worked well with pineapple flavour. I wonder if it would be quite as good with chocolate for eg, so I think that's what I'll try the next time I visit.

When I first met Viveck at the Zomato foodie meet, he invited us to try out So South, but when he figured out that some of us were South Indians, he was hesitant about that invitation since what they serve aren't traditional dosas, but I loved the fusion concept and inspite of it being a veggie place, I'll definitely be back for lunch or high tea.

Rating : 4.5 / 5

Awadhpuri, Ahmedabad

Awadhpuri,
First Floor, Pushpak Complex,
Opposite Prahlad Nagar Garden,
Anand Nagar Road
Ahmedabad
079 64503044, 079 31202220

I'd been to Awadhpuri a couple of months ago and service was very very slow and at that time I had mentioned that it was preferable to go for their home delivery option rather than dine-in. We had been ordering delivery from them on & off, so I hadn't realised that they had moved.

Awadhpuri has now moved to a new location - in the same building, but on the 1st floor where Punjab di Galli used to be. They have maintained the same seating and done up the walls with paintings and all. But this is definitely a much better location. It is brighter, more spacious, tables are spaced out more comfortably, seating is more luxurious and hence overall, its been a huge improvement.

We reached around 2:40 and they had a buffet offer. I asked them if it was still open and they willingly obliged. It was a sit down buffet, unlimited portions made fresh each time, but served in your seat - no running up & down to the buffet table and balancing plates). The vegetarian option is about 425Rs and the non-veg option is 500Rs. The selection was so good, that I did not even bother to ask for the a la carte menu.

The buffet started with a soup, which was paya for non veg and tomato dhaniiya for veg. I told them we wanted 3 non-veg buffet, but for 1 person we wanted tomato dhaniya rather than paya soup. although we were the only 3 people in the restaurant at this time, they willingly obliged. The tomato dhaniya shorba was outstanding. Nice and spicy Indian style.

This was followed by unlimited freshly made kebabs served like Barbecue Nation and The Great Kebab Factory, but so much tastier than BBQ Nation and on par with TGKF(Ahmedabad, not Noida). There was mutton Galouti which was mildly spiced, but pounded flat, mutton chops, chicken pasandey, fish mahi abi hayat and Lahori chicken tikkas. My favourites were the galaouti, chops and pasandey. My mum loved the tikkas. We ordered repeats of all these items and they were served with a smile.

By the time we were done with the starters, it was past 3pm and a lot of the serving staff had left, but some of them stayed back to take care of us and never once made us feel like we were wasting their time or that we should hurry up and I think this deserves 5 on 5 for service standards.

At both BBQ Nation and TGKF, the mains are quite weak compared to their kebabs (except TGKF's kaali dhal), but here is where Awadhpuri overtook both these chains in quality and taste. We were served a brilliant mutton curry - Baluchi Ghosht and boneless chicken curry - Begum ki pasandgi and some yellow dhal. A bread basket with warqi paratha, sheermaal & dhaniya naan was also served. The chicken biryani that they served later, was a little average compared to the rest of the superlative food, but easily overlooked.

Desserts brought out a platter of mirchi ka halwa (simla mirch/capsicum), sevaiyyan, gulab jamuns, zafrani kheer and kulfi! Again, each of the desserts was amazing.

The food was so good, that we stuffed ourselves so much. . . None of us ate dinner that day.

I can't recommend this place enough. the veg buffet has equal number of dishes which also sounded interesting. Prices mentioned above are inclusive of tax. The buffet is slightly more expensive over the weekend.

We have also ordered home delivery from them. However, this menu too has changed. They offer a platter of assorted kebabs for about 800/-. It comes in a square earthen dish. Initially I was quite surprised at how heavy the parcel was, it felt like a kilo and a half of kebabs. Since the dish was lined with foil, the earthen dish is now an unusual holder in my garden. Compared to their regular bufffet, obviously the home delivery kebabs are expensive, but almost as tasty.


Rating : 5 / 5

Attill, Ahmedabad

I was really keen to visit Attill when it opened in AlphaOne because the Attill in Mangalore (later learnt, this is not part of the same chain) is awesome and Attill in Bombay (part of this Shetty Sons chain) has received great reviews from my friends.

The good part is that Attill serves varieties of fish that aren't normally seen on menus in Ahmedabad - bangdas (mackerels), pomfrets, bombil (bombay duck) and seer fish (which is found on other menus too)

However, the day we visited, they said that bombay duck wasn't available, so we settled for fish cutlets.

The restaurant has 30+ covers, but they took over 20 minutes to get our fish cutlets and 30 minutes from time of order to get our seer fish fry. Given that all the other eateries at Alpha Mall pride themselves on quick service, this delay was even more glaring than normal.

The cutlets were ok, but you couldn't really taste the fish above the crispy onions. It was served with thousand island ready made dressing, that had formed a light crust on the top of the bowl, from exposure to air. The sear fish wasn't bad and my husband said that the prawns (hari mirch tikka) were good. The quality of fish was good, but the time taken for service was terrible. Having just returned from a 2 week trip to Mangalore, the taste left a lot to be desired, perhaps I will enjoy the food more when I am truly craving Manglorean food and been starved of it for awhile.

The egg biryani was very good. Lots of chunks of masala in typical Bambaiyya style. The mutton in xacuti was excellent, but the gravy itself was salty and flat. The rich complex flavours were nowhere to be tasted.

The rotis were really soft and the laccha paratha was one of the best I have eaten in a really long time. So perhaps this is an ok place to go if you want kebabs and rotis, but I would rather go to kebab factory at the Radisson or Awadhpuri for that.

There weren't any types of poli/dosas - neer dosa, appams, sannas, idiyappams etc on the menu which is sad as these are the best accompaniments for Manglorean and coastal dishes.

Attill calls itself  a Fine Dining restaurant, but we were served food in plastic (not even melamine) plates.

Service is extremely slow and the staff don't seem to have become comfortable with the menu yet.

If you have never tasted Coastal cuisine before, then don't let this be your first place to try it, as it does not do justice to the myriad complex flavours of food from the West Coast. If you are craving Konkani food and just need a fix, then you can try this place. But its an expensive place too.

3 rotis, fish cutlets (4 tiny ones), 1 slice of sear fish fried, 1 mutton xacuti, 1 egg biryani, 2 tandoori rotis, 1 laccha paratha costed around 1800/-

I think I'm better off cooking this cuisine at home and requesting parcels from people who visit us from the Coastal regions.

Rating : 3 / 5

Ame Gujarati, Ahmedabad

Ame Gujarati
169, Sindhu Bhavan Road,
Off S G Highway,
Bodakdev
Ahmedabad
079 29096821

I visited Ame Gujarati with my mum some time ago - courtesy the 2 thalis I had won on Zomato's - Write for a bite contest. I wasn't expecting much, so Ame Gujarati ended up exceeding my expectations.

 

They have 3 types of thalis with different type of serving plates, different number of items and different price points - Vepari - 270 / Sheth - 380 / Nagar Sheth - 551. Our voucher entitled us to 2 Sheth thalis. As far as I could tell the Nagar sheth thali has an extra farsaan and a special sweet. Is that and eating out of a silver plate, worth an additional 170Rs?  You need to decide when you enter. However the items on the menu differ daily and seasonally.

Unlike most Gujarati Thali restaurants which seat customers in a large or small hall, Ame Gujarati has multiple glass houses, which seat about 20-30 people in each. You can either use the entire glass house or have a table that seats 6 or more.

The thali items offered were pretty standard. A thali of chutneys and pickles and chundo was first kept on the table, then came papads, salad and punjabi samosas. In the thali itself, we were served 2 types of sweets - mohan thal and fruit matho (fruits in shrikand), cheese samosas and khandvi, 4 veg side dishes, dhal, kadhi. rotli, puri, rice, juice and buttermilk. There was a choice of kesar pista or fruit bonanza ice cream at the end (it tasted like it was from havmor).

What did I like? - the ambience is nice. If you have a larger group that wants to relax, its a good option. They don't make you hurry up like they do at Gordhan Thal. But its still not as good as Agashiye for me.

The food was average. Nothing stood out and made me say "wow" or inspire me to take another helping - like Gordhan thals chaat basket or Agashiyes basundi.

The service is also somewhere in the middle. Its not bad, nor is it overly subservient, it was polite, but it was a little haphazard. We got our sweets with the papad, but then it took over 8-10 minutes for the rotlis and sabjis to arrive. I opted for the rotlis without ghee and they were dry and slightly hard. (I haven't faced this problem with non ghee rotlis at Agashiye, Sarbhara or Gordhan Thal - they are always soft, whether they pour ghee on top of your rotli or not.

The food wasn't very hot when served. My guess is that the distance they have to travel from the kitchen to the cabana is causing a part of the problem.

Its a nice place to have a thali near SG road if you don't want to wait for a table at Gordhan Thal, which is why I've rated it 3.5, but sadly for me, nothing stood out so exceptionally, that made me think - "Yes, I want to come back again soon"

Rating : 3.5 / 5