Dining at Save Farm: variety is the spice of life!

Other than accommodation and service, food is the mainstay of any trip. At Save Farm, Gholwad the food was outstanding. If you want to truly savour the variety, do stay for 3 nights at least. You won’t regret it, I promise! Every day we had something special in addition to varying vegetables. The only common dishes on the daily menu were the usual staple food: dal, rice, rotis, koshimbir, green chutney, pickle, roasted papad and chaas. At breakfast, fruit pieces are served with the main dish and toasted break slices with butter are also available (as many as you want). Even the pickles were of a varying nature. Check out the menu details and photos below and I’m sure it will set you drooling.

Menu

Some food items are common each day, as mentioned earlier. In addition to those common dishes, here’s what we had:

Day 1

• Breakfast: Poha
• Lunch: Brinjal, Chole, Pakodas, Chikoo kulfi
• Dinner: Puranpoli, Cabbage, Tendli

Day 2

• Breakfast: Upma
• Lunch: Aamras, Bhindi, Sprouts missal
• Dinner: Potato, Pumpkin, Gulab jamun

Day 3

• Breakfast: Thalipeeth with dry garlic chutney and curds, along with a bowl each of corn cobs, water apples and mango slices.
• Lunch: Aluwadi, Sweet rice, Gawar
• Dinner: Kheer, Cauliflower, Potato, Dahi-kadi

Day 4

• Breakfast: Sheera (made at our request as we did not want poha again)
• Lunch: Pakodas, Tendli, Masoor-potato mix, Chikoo kulfi
• Dinner: forgot what we had!

Day 5

• Breakfast: Upma (we were asked whether we wanted sabudana khichdi or upma)
• Lunch: Shrikhand, brinjal
• Dinner: not taken, as we left after lunch

And the award goes to...

• Best breakfast dish: Thalipeeth
• Best lunch/dinner dish: Aamras
• Best pickle: Ginger-chilli
• Best special: pakodas
• Best dessert: Chikoo kulfi

A lot of reviews on the Net mentioned that the chikoo pickle was exceptional. It is unique, definitely, but somehow after eating it the first few times, you tend not to like it that much. Maybe because it is served regularly with the breakfast that one gets fed up of it!

The times for eating are fixed as follows:

• Breakfast: 9a.m.
• Lunch: 1 or 1.30p.m.
• Evening tea (no snacks): 4 or 4.30p.m. (they will ask you when you want it), served in your room.
• Dinner: 8.30p.m.

Due to the fixed times, it is best to be on time to be punctual for your breakfast/meals in the common dining area. Otherwise you will end up eating cold food. In case on your first day you are arriving after 10.30a.m., you can request them to keep breakfast for you. It will be cold, but it is worth enjoying. You can get hot tea, though, any time you arrive before lunch.

Kokum sherbet

At our request, we also got limbu sherbet and kokam sherbet served at our rooms (Rs.15 per glass) and coconut water to drink on the last morning or our stay (no extra charge for this). The coconut water was not much liked as it was not sweet at all, but you absolutely must have the sherbets. There will be no staff to give these late evening so in case you are out roaming, you can request them to leave the tray of glassed on a chair outside your room. They will do so at around 5p.m., ensuring they are covered. It does feel great to sip on these cooling drinks when you return from wherever you were, even if it was just a walk to the gate and back!

An important point to note that their kitchen is also extremely clean & hygienic.

A few suggestions to the owners:

• It is better not to put the fruit pieces of chikoo/papaya and chikoo pickle in the breakfast plate. Instead, serve them separately in a plate/bowl. Not everybody likes to eat fruit with the breakfast and the pickle may not be a good accompaniment with the breakfast item. By serving these separately, wastage of the fruits/pickles can be avoided.
• Do not allow guests to come straight from the swimming pool to the dining area in their wet clothes/half dressed, dripping water all over the floor/serving table and making chairs wet. Guests should have the basic courtesy & good manners of course, but if they don't, best to tell them directly.