This town is just so different, perhaps it is because there are so many people heading here from out of town or country, or perhaps it is also because this town is strictly vegetarian and so essentially meat free

The Babylon Restaurant or the Pumpernickel German Bakery was one of many places in Rishikesh that seemed to be catering for the Western Taste Vegetarian Style.

As a result you seem to get a real mix of tastes and foods from all over the world.

Bakery in Action

Well it is lunchtime and for a group of bakers from  Screveton Community Bread Makers in Nottingham, anywhere that was baking bread had to be somewhere that we wanted to stop.

So we were all over the chance to eat in a ‘bakery’ even a German Bakery.

Who knows what we might find inside? Lets go in and have a look.

Pizza Menu

I am not sure why I ordered a Pizza, perhaps it was a chance to have something western after weeks of Indian food?  Or perhaps it was the vibe of the place, it did not seem to be a place catering for Indian food, it was more a Western place in a ‘resort’ type of atmosphere.

So I thought why the hell not, lets get a pizza.

I like pizza, I mean I like ‘good pizza’

Alla Fungi Pizza

Now usually I like a something like a Ham and Mushroom, or a Pepperoni pizza, but here we are in a Town where meat is banned so that is so not an option. No worries I can live with a Mushroom pizza so I ordered the Alla Fungi Pizza.

This is described on the menu as ‘Fresh home made tomato sauce, fresh mushroom, Yak cheese and herbs’ for 200 rupees.

I really liked it, it was a bit different as the Yak cheese gave it a quite unusual tangy and rich taste, apparently it is also good for you, oh and just I case I don’t have a degree in stating the obvious, it is made from yak’s milk.

Herb wise there was a fair bit of your oregano (I think), plenty of pepper, plenty of white button mushroom and a smear of tomato sauce. What I liked the most was that the crust was really crispy and had an amazingly solid crispy crunchy bite (no floppy base here).

The cheese was also cooked so that there was a soft layer beneath a super baked topping. I love a crispy cheese topping, and these guys delivered for sure!

Even though I had to wait 20 minutes to get my pizza, it was worth it because that meant the base was cooked just perfectly.  Clearly someone in that kitchen knew how to cook a pizza and they also had the balls to make me wait for 10 minutes after all my friends had been served to make sure that it was just cooked with perfection. Great job Guys!

The Specials Menu

So while I waited for that Pizza what did the rest of the gang get? We were Five strong, with a mix of Indian, Kenyan, and European you might find it interesting to see what they went for.

Some of the rest of the group looked at the charmingly handwritten Specials Menu. I kind of felt that this was hippieville 101 if you came to India. You could tell that all these places were catering for another type of diner.

Spicy Mushroom Broccoli Pasta (with pesto)

A few people chose the Spicy Mushroom Broccoli Pasta (with pesto). To be honest it looked a bit TOO green to me, and I was not sure about those slices of tomato carved to look like strawberries (or is that just me).

I don’t really see where this dish fitted into the whole Indian experience, but then again I just ordered and ate that pizza, so really this is just Rishikesh Hippy world filled with westerners seeking enlightenment and perhaps a few tastes from back home.

God those yoga people will hate me now, please comment just to boost the post 🙂

Vegetable Noodles

I was surprised that the Indians in our group were all over the Noodles. (Yeh OK I know I ate a pizza)

My thoughts were Vegetable Noodles? again why? by all accounts this was really very tasty, so what do I know?

Honestly I just feel like I am in a vegetarian resort in India, catering for westerners. It is so different an experience.

Having said that I could probably live and eat here quite comfortably (they had rooms) because everything that we ate here was cooked freshly and we could see the guys in the kitchen working away furiously and it looked like it was running like clockwork.

It is such a cool place with at least three floors to eat at or to chill at with a coffee, they also had wifi as well.

The Lunchtime View down the Ganges

Whatever you want to think about the menu being a little bit Western in places, you can forgive all of that when you sit and take in the view. I could so easily live here, I wonder how much it would cost to retire here early?

Seriously I can put up with a few hippies if I get to drink a cup of tea looking down the Ganges in a spot like this each day! What an amazing place to be!

Where is It? Well here is the address on the menu cover