It was the good friday weekend (that was looking vacationically long per se) and there had to be an escape from the city
We started on our trip to karwar. Resorts booked. Hopped on the car and here we start off on our over hyped road trip. About 550 kms from the edge of Bangalore. You take the outer ring road hit the hebbal flyover head towards tumkur road and get all over NH4.
For the record 6 of us. Landing into mess is destiny. An hour long jam in the rain. That's tumkur road for you.Okay cheer up. Enjoy the open roads of NH4. 2 fucking hrs just to get out of Bangalore.
1st toll: 15 rs (Madanayakahalli)
2nd toll: 26 rs
3rd toll: 40 rs
4th toll: 35 rs
5th toll. aargh forget it. why cant they just take it one time and be done with it. well who listens to me.
So after many tolls, dozes and siestas and many loops of the only CD we had we reach within 30 kms of karwar. You already start smelling the sea including the fish in it.
We reached Tarang Resort. It is around 3 kms from karwar town and a little off main road led by a bridge across the kali river estuary that cuts through a picturesquely looming mountain. The manager was a nice talkative man in his 60s i guess. Informed me about places to see around. Most interestingly it turns out he was in navy during the India Pakistan conflict of 1971. told me parts of stories of his navy days, which sounded quite entertaining. Nice cool resort with pool, 2.5k per room. Two beds, old fashioned furniture. Attached bath. A/C rooms large glass windows and real mushy beds
The food was not too good not too bad. Very much eatable given you are kind of hungry. The only negative point about the food at the resort is they give less quantity (but don't take this review cuz we had only breakfast - egg fry, bread, puri, tea).
We headed to the nearest beach 500 mts from the resort. Devbagh beach. The beach wasnt very social. You can say a starter beach for the whole vacation. Also the sand wasnt very clean. The crabs were real fast still we managed a closeup. Yes you can swim.
Took a nice bath (the amenities were neat n clean) and headed for lunch. On asking around people told us about Hotel Premier the so called coolest restaurant of the place. Its situated at the heart of karwar town and is pretty famous around the area as even a pan walla could help us locate it from more than 2km distance. Trouble is in our forte, came to know that kitchen closes in 15 minutes(3:15 pm) and order better be placed asap.
chicken biriyani (nice. Chicken was good)
prawn curry (coconut oiled, coconut flavoured, but you get used to it)
chicken chilly curry (awesome) and
rice (needed more boiling) and
roti (nice) and
beer.
The ambience and service was fine as per locational standards. Cost: 200 bucks a head
That brings us to 4 hrs of afternoon siesta. some went to see the sunset at the devbagh beach. but that was none of my business hence continuing the sleep was preferred.
come dinner time. Our ex navy officer manager tells us about Amrut Restaurant in around the same area as premier restaurant i.e. in karwar town. And that's how dinner gets planned.
So Amrut is a sea food restaurant. Has a friends lounge at the ground floor and a family lounge at the first floor. Its a dim lit retro looking place where it takes about 2 minutes to restore backup in case of a power failure.
chilly prawn (nice coconut was no more an issue)
chilly crab (awesome. They provide clippers too if asked for)
squid dry fry (whatever)
chicken curry (good)
fish fry (good)
pomfret fry (awesome. Had two)
pomfret curry (awesome)
rice, roti and
mango and butter scotch ice cream (good).
Price: 260 bucks a head. Service was good. the waiter was a dude. expert of his job. Remembered whole orders of more than 5 tables including who wants what. We actually asked him to write it down but he denied with a confidence of dhoni at the world cup final. We ended up planning the next day's lunch at the same place. Highly recommended for karwar
with that day 1 ends in company of beer, mazza and lays.
Day 2:
Took a nice bath (the amenities were neat n clean) and headed for lunch. On asking around people told us about Hotel Premier the so called coolest restaurant of the place. Its situated at the heart of karwar town and is pretty famous around the area as even a pan walla could help us locate it from more than 2km distance. Trouble is in our forte, came to know that kitchen closes in 15 minutes(3:15 pm) and order better be placed asap.
chicken biriyani (nice. Chicken was good)
prawn curry (coconut oiled, coconut flavoured, but you get used to it)
chicken chilly curry (awesome) and
rice (needed more boiling) and
roti (nice) and
beer.
The ambience and service was fine as per locational standards. Cost: 200 bucks a head
That brings us to 4 hrs of afternoon siesta. some went to see the sunset at the devbagh beach. but that was none of my business hence continuing the sleep was preferred.
come dinner time. Our ex navy officer manager tells us about Amrut Restaurant in around the same area as premier restaurant i.e. in karwar town. And that's how dinner gets planned.
So Amrut is a sea food restaurant. Has a friends lounge at the ground floor and a family lounge at the first floor. Its a dim lit retro looking place where it takes about 2 minutes to restore backup in case of a power failure.chilly prawn (nice coconut was no more an issue)
chilly crab (awesome. They provide clippers too if asked for)
squid dry fry (whatever)
chicken curry (good)
fish fry (good)
pomfret fry (awesome. Had two)
pomfret curry (awesome)
rice, roti and
mango and butter scotch ice cream (good).
Price: 260 bucks a head. Service was good. the waiter was a dude. expert of his job. Remembered whole orders of more than 5 tables including who wants what. We actually asked him to write it down but he denied with a confidence of dhoni at the world cup final. We ended up planning the next day's lunch at the same place. Highly recommended for karwar
with that day 1 ends in company of beer, mazza and lays.
Day 2:
Had a similar breakfast and headed to Rabindranath Tagore beach. This beach was more social and enjoyable than devbagh beach. The sand was cleaner and didn't stick to the feet. some groups in families took the bath of their life.
Therez a warship museum near the beach converted from a 1971 warship and perched up on a cement base. there are stairs to enter the ship to reach the deck but as an alternative you can also choose to scale the chains of the anchor hanging outside. The ship shows some typical conditions of 1971 navy from the uniforms, badges of rank, weapons, engines etc etc. No they were not very state of the art though.
I leave the rest of the descriptions for you to go n see in case you are planning to.
We again headed to amrut restaurant for lunch. Yeah when you get a good place in a foreign land you dont really leave it easily. More fish and more n more fish. we were bong majority. forgive us. This time it costed us around 220 bucks a head since we ruled out the starters and sticked to main course all along
Note: keep the metrogyls and enos handy
Yeah time to head back home. Obviously that reminds of our respective managers and their cabins to be vivid. We missed visiting the fort and navybase. time crunched. The return journey was fun since it was a daylight journey and people were actually awake to make us look like friends. We started off around 5 in the evening and reached the city gates by 1:30 AM including the road side dinner we had at AA Dhaba about 250 kms off Bangalore.
