Nice menu at Potoba, wonderful variety but taste is rather mediocre
It doesn't look big from outside, but it is reasonably spacious from inside.
Potoba - Spacious Inside
It is interesting restaurant because it offers large variety of Maharashtrian food that you don't find in the restaurants otherwise.
Tempting Maharashtrian dishes available in Potoba
We visited the restaurant recently and her is the review from that experience. There were 5-6 of us and thus we could try quiet a few dishes there (though couldn't capture all of them). We ordered Veg. Cheese Sandwich, Veg. Crispy (chinese), Thalipeeth, Veg Thali, Masale-bhat and lassi to finish off our meal. We asked for Utappa, but for some reason they didn't have it.
Also, one of the members from our group wanted Thalipeeth without onion-garlic, and initially they refused saying that they get kneaded dough from elsewhere, but later agreed to offer such Thalipeeth as they had some mix (bhajani/भाजणी) available there.
Coming back to food - the taste is not good. Thalipeeth were just about acceptable, not really tasty and chutney they served with it was quite bland as well. Masale-bhat was dry and didn't taste good either. It was bland and missed that wonderful taste with veggies. Veg Thali was good in its contents, but all those sabjis were bland & tasteless as well. Not at all acceptable from a restaurant that specializes in Maharashtrian food.
Veg. Cheese Sandwich at Potoba
The starter Veg. Crispy and Veg Cheese sandwich were decent though. The lassi we tried was probably the worst I have tasted anywhere in Pune. It was thick curd with some sugar- we could even eat sugar separately as we tried having it.
They have decent set-up and serving Maharashtrian food that is not easily available outside is a excellent idea, but unless you make your food tasty - you're not going to attract customers to your restaurant, right?
There is nothing wrong with service, location or ambiance of the restaurant - but taste of the food is quite mediocre to put it mildly.
| Rating - Food - 2.5/5 Service - 3/5 Value for money - 3/5 Overall - 3/5 |
If you are really craving for some homely Maharashtrian dishes like Metkoot-bhaat, Varanhal, you may want to visit Potoba, but I am afraid the taste of their food is not going to make you happy.
Nevertheless, I am planning to give them second chance and try few different Maharashtrian dishes next time, and I will update here about my experience!
