Restaurant Review: Hotel Opal, Kolhapur
Before heading to Goa by road, we decided to look up a list of restaurants that we could stop by along the way.
We didn’t take the regular ‘bus route’ to Goa, as it’s notorious for rash driving and mishaps. So we decided to take the route from Mumbai, Pune, Kolhapur, Ponda and straight to Panaji.
En route, we halted at Hotel Opal for lunch. Owing to the terrible traffic jam at the Ghat section to Pune, we lost out on almost two hours of our journey but it worked out in our favour as we reached just in time for lunch at Kolhapur.
We had read about Hotel Opal from a few websites dedicated to road trips and decided to try it out. Hotel Opal is not situated on the main Highway; it’s a slight detour – about 15 – 20 mins drive inside the city. We asked the auto rickshaw drivers at the rickshaw stand just next to the highway and they promptly directed us to Hotel Opal; that’s when we then realized how popular this place is.
Don’t go by the appearance of the building from the outside. Even on a weekend there’ll be ample space for parking and after parking our car, we walked right into Hotel Opal. We were amazed to walk into a huge dining hall with people digging into some authentic Kolhapuri dishes – I spotted biryani, mutton curry and thalis and my mouth started watering.
Since were not too sure of what to order we asked the waiter about the specialty dishes at Opal. He simply nodded and replied that he would get something for us that we would like and that we could always ask for more!
We quickly went to the washroom (not very clean, carrying hand sanitizers, soap strips and extra tissues is highly recommended) to freshen up after a long drive. We had started out from Mumbai at 7am in the morning and were at Kolhapur by 2pm – so you can very well imagine how famished we were!
We got three different soup bowls full of red mutton masala and two kinds of gravies – one white and the other brown. They are called rassas (gravies) and were served with 10 chapatis on the side.
We wolfed down every bit of the meat and relished the rassas and I ended it with a bowl of curd that was set to perfection – just like baked pudding! With all that we ate, our bill came to Rs. 280/- (for two meals) and we couldn’t have been happier with the prompt service and the choice of food served to us.
If you’re going through Kolhapur and have time for lunch, snacks or dinner, we recommend Hotel Opal; and if you do drop by there, do write in to us at tanya@tanyamunshi.com about your experience and the choice of food.
Location:
Opal Hospitality Services Pvt Ltd
2104/16 Pune – Bangapre Road
Kolhapur – 416 005
Email: info@hotelopal.in
Website: www.hotelopal.co.in
Phone: 0231 – 2536767/ 2536969/ 668622/ 668344
My experience there was not as good..We did try the taambda (red) and pandhra (white) rassa there which is a kolhapuri speciality with Jowar bhakris and had ordered both chicken and mutton but it was no where close to authentic kolhapuri food..