What a surprisingly good Brunch place in Kharadi !

Rating – 4.5/5

I have been a traveler for food almost since the time I could afford to do it and I have traveled long distances, sometimes to other Cities just to have that exquisite portion of Biryani or that elusive Tandoori chicken or the most tender Galawati Kebabs one could ever imagine. Staying in Pune has been a bliss, apart from the Biryanis which are usually like Pulaos mixed with Meat we get an extreme variety of food all over Pune. However as they say “Chiraag taley Andhera” the area I put up (Kharadi/Wadgaon Sheri) probably has a handful of places where you can go and have an enjoyable meal apart from the ever mushrooming budget places.

Texas Tower is one such place which does offer a privileged experience of sorts in terms of crowd and ambience but doesn’t quite burn a hole in your pocket and I really had a good time here on one of the exclusive food tasting invites. It has been here in Kharadi for quite some time but I am not sure if many people are aware of it’s existence apart from the IT crowd that throngs the place almost on all the Weekdays.

The Ambience – They offer multi level/type of seating with the outdoor yet covered section being my favourite for a typical day/evening in the Monsoon season. The indoor section is quite cozy and has all the usual suspects you would want for a relaxed date with your partner. The outdoor section has live acoustics during the Sunday Brunch and different live events during Friday & Saturday evenings. They have a Valet Parking available to take care of all your parking woes on the busy Kharadi road so just walk in and head straight up to the top floor in the Stellar Spaces building and have a good time.

Food & Drinks – When I went there I expected it to be a usual booze oriented club kind of a place but my impression was quickly changed as I noticed a lot of family crowd happily digging in to the ordered food items and ofcourse the huge Brunch spread that had everything starting from live counters serving Pasta, Sandwiches, grill starters, Burgers, Salads, different breads and what not !

The Starters – Almost all of the starter inclusive of the garlic breads/sandwiches that were served as part of the Brunch were delightfully tasty and when I say tasty I absolutely mean it.

Though everything in starters was top class, the absolute stand outs for me were the Fish kebabs in Mustard sauce & Chicken Tikkas. These were two preparations which were liked by the three of us including my 8 year old daughter and I am not sure how many rounds of repetitions we had of these and I think we only ate the starters to about 50% of our appetite.

The Drinks – The Cranberry Cooler and Blue Sea Mocktails played an able part to go beautifully with the starters and the Blue Sea Mocktail in particular was terrific.

We however were not so lucky with the Virgin Mary mix as all it tasted was like to Tomato soup in a glass so please order accordingly. The Cran Cooler & Blue Sea would definitely be my recommendations in Mocktails !

The Mains – After a rather sumptuous feast during the starters section my hopes were sky high as we moved on to the Mains. The Mains were pretty decent at most but didn’t really set the rest of my brunch on fire for sure. We met one of their Chefs Mr. Sheru Khan who served us a Dum version of biryani in no time when I asked for it and he is one person I am sure that can take the Mains here in Texas Tower to the next level with his experience of working extensively with the Mughlai cuisine which I discovered during the course of our discussion. At the end of it we just didn’t have any appetite left for any Desserts and I guess the starters had done their trick already so I don’t quite even remember seeing what was their in the Desserts section as we were that full 🙂

The Verdict – This was one Brunch we enjoyed to our fullest and talking about the financial aspects this one was easy on the pocket, for the spread that was served all this came at an extremely reasonable rate of Rs.649 plus taxes. We were taken good care of by the staff and especially by their Manager. In a nutshell this was one Brunch I would remember for some time to come, for just the starters and the breakfast items part they would score 5/5 however the Mains and the variety of Desserts do have to improve further to make it that irresistible buffet place in the time to come. All the Best Texas Tower !