Not to miss Rajasthani Thali at Garden Hotel near popular Vintage Car Museum of Udaipur, Rajasthan - Delicious food, good service and decent ambience
During our stay in Udaipur, we decided to visit Garden Hotel restaurant for lunch, as this place serves delicious Rajasthani thali. And thali means, unlimited food at fixed price :) . Nandan had visited this place a few years back and he recommended the place. and certainly it's a place we would love to share with Travellingcamera family. This blogpost shares about Garden Hotel, it's location, why it's popular in Udaipur, kind of food to expect and what else can you do around this place after lunch.
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Above photograph shows main counter inside the restaurant where Rajasthani Thali is served. On the right of the photograph you can see a family enjoying Rajasthani Thali. You can buy ticket for the thali at entry gate or get a token inside the restaurant as well. If you are at the ticket counter, you also have an option to get combined ticket for thali and visit to Vintage Car Museum which is located next to the restaurant. We only opted for thali and it costed us 300 rs per person.
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Food at Garden Hotel restaurant is served in thalis you see in very firt photograph of this blogpost. Good number of vegetables are served with rice, tawa roti along with daal, baati, choorma, rajasthani kadhi, gatte ki sabzi, khichdi, papad, gulabjamun and raita. Almost everyone they served was tasty but my favourite was raita and we got it few times :). During this trip, we had best baati at Dera Kumbalgarh but Baati at Garden Restaurant was also quite good. Seems like menu also keeps changing at Garden restaurant but key Rajasthani dishes are always served.
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Garden Hotel is part of HRH Hotels and hence quite popular in Udaipur. This is located across the Gulab Bagh. The canteen is located inside the hotel and is in circular shape. Above photograph shows the view of rooms from Canteen where Rajasthani Thali is served. This is open for anyone visiting Udaipur and not limited to guests staying at Garden Hotel.
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As you come out of the Garden Restaurant after enjoying Rajasthani Thali, you see the popular Vintage Car museum which is also known as 'The Palace Udaipur - Vintage and Classic car collection'. You need to have a ticket for seeing car collection inside it. There are a handful cars parked on outer side of the museum which can be seen from common area. We found the ticket of this museum expensive and there was no one in our group who was interested.
Above photograph shows the restaurant inside the Garden Hotel where Rajasthani thali is served. Service is decent inside the restaurant. We had few instances when staff was bringing other stuff instead of what we were asking for. Not sure if that was intentional or it was age of the staff that they were forgetting our requests. Generally the space is pretty full so it must be hard for the staff to remember all orders. May be our expectations are set very high by staff of Andhra Bhawan in Delhi which is cheaper but still service is super fast without a miss.
Udaipur is also a popular destination for trying street food. Somehow I was excited about that part before reaching the city, but since it was COVID time and overall state of the city was not very encouraging to try street food. We were there in dec 2020, when lot of construction work was going on for smart city efforts. Garden Restaurant is a good place to have a meal from cleanness and hygiene standpoint.
We certainly recommend this place for enjoying Rajasthani food. Unlimited thali is worth 300 rs per person. Just remember that it will be vegetarian and chose a day, when you want to eat a lot :).
If you liked this post and found it helpful, I would request you to follow these things when traveling -
1. Manage your waste well and don’t litter Use dustbins.
2. Tell us if you went to a place and found it hard to locate a dustbin.
3. Avoid bottle waters in hills. Usually you get clean water in hills and water bottles create lot of mess in our ecosystem.
4. Say big no to plastic and avoid those unhealthy snacks packed in plastic bags. Rather buy fruits.
5. Don't play loud blaring music in forests of jungle camps. You are a guest in that ecosystem and disturbing the locals (humans and animals) is not polite.
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