Saturday, October 19, 2013

A Foodie's Delight, Mapro Garden and Venna Lake

Day 3 : 18th Mar 2013


I had heard a lot about Mapro from family and friends and have been using their products for a very long time so visiting their factory and Garden was a must for a food blogger and foodie like me.

It is a place that houses their chocolate manufacturing unit, we can view the chocolate coating process from the glass windows. There are numerous counters that sell their products. What is nice is they have a tasting counter where they give shots of all the syrups, squashes etc mixed with milk or water. You can decide on your picks and then buy what you like. I freaked out completely and here is my loot. Crushes, Syrups, Jellies, chocolates...


Besides the chocolate factory they have a large garden area with stone tables and benches and plastic chairs for plonking yourself to wolf down some tasty treats. You first take a look at the large menu.


Our pick was the Classic grilled sandwich which sounded great to me with baked potato mentioned on the board. It more that lived up to its name. It is a large sandwich with a side of potato chips that fill two people ofcourse along with a shake. Ours was a thick strawberry shake. We had already had cream and strawberries elsewhere and had to give a miss to it at Mapro, had we known earlier! We sat at a table overlooking the strawberry garden. 



In Mahabaleshwar and no strawberry and cream? How is that even possible!

 The roadside parlor with a strawberry patch.

Serious Marketing! Falero is a brand of Mapro's jelly sweets.

Post lunch we went to Venna lake and sat in the shades at the waterfront, watching honeymooners and families with kids pedaling boats on the lake. It was too hot to go trekking again. Just looking at the scenery was more satisfying.

Around Venna lake we saw Kavadwalas selling fresh carrots and shalgam with the greens on, you don't see these in Mumbai, strawberries ofcourse. I kept my strawberry shopping for the last day.




Horse riding in the hot sun, not my idea of fun!

Instead here is the cool lake, just the sight was a relief.

That's the Venna lake for you.



Day 4 : 19th Mar 2013

We spared the day for shopping in the town market, boxes and boxes of strawberries to bring back. We found a nice basket of cherry tomatoes, they were so sweet and I made them last long using in salads, curries and pasta. The aam papad was quite good which we bought from one of the small shops in Malcom peth.

Mahabaleshwar is a really good getaway for Mumbaikars especially Navi Mumbaikars as we save a few hours and bad traffic. Neeta's Volvos are very convenient for to and fro journeys. Our stay at the Citrus Chambers was so perfect and the cab we hired, everything made our time in Mahabaleshwar after this huge gap of many years very memorable. 

Check out more of Mahabaleshwar here.

1 comment:

MAPRO said...

Thank you for taking time and writing about Mapro Garden. We are over whelmed by your overall positive feedback.

We are glad you enjoyed your visit as well as the location. Your positive feedback motivates us to serve our customer even better.

It was a pleasure having you as our guest.. We are looking forward to see you soon!