A few weeks ago, I was enjoying a small holiday in my native place at Mangalore. It was here that I had a gala time visiting Pabba’s & Ideals , two ice-cream parlors of note. What a time that was. In between, attending weddings, me n my cousins decided to take in go-karting( for the first time in our lives) at Manipal ( the education mecca). Our reason for going there was that it was deserted ( at 10.30pm) and it was dirt cheap ( 50/- for 4 rounds). Still it is not about this that I wanna talk about. After we were through with all the go-karting etc, I was famished as were my friends. On mentioning the same, I was taken by my cousin to this place called the Planet Cafe.
There’s no great shakes about the decor of this place, but it has a good ambience. It is generally visited by the students fraternity, and it is open upto at least around 1.30 am, This is unheard of down south. The help, brought down the unassuming menu cards, and we started perusing the same. This place generally serves pizza’s burgers, hot dogs, shakes, and some other drinks (non-alcoholic). While the others generally opted for the house-speciality drinks (Planet thunder, Planet ginger), I went in for their special Fish Burger. And was it special? You betcha. It was just too good. Puts the fillet-o-fish burger of Mcdonalds to shame . Infact its no contest at all. My cousin ordered the bbq chicken hot dog. It was nothing short of yummy. Believe it friends, the food was just too fabulous. Later on I had a sip of the two planet special drinks. The only word that comes to my mind wrt those two is ’Awesome’. And if you want to sample some of that, better make sure that you are there a little earlier. Apparently we were just lucky that day at that hour to get these specials. Like I said before, they have other combos in milkshakes. I went in for something called the Bacardi Blast. And it was a blast all right. A unique combo of Papaya shake with orange icecream, with some icecream on top. Jeez, where did they find these genius combo’s huh? And you know what?, folks say that good things come with a price tag. Well, in Planet Cafe you couldn’t be more off the mark.
The planet special drinks cost a mere 15/- bucks. The milkshake cost me 32/-. The burger cost me 30/-, and the hot-dogs were 20/- a piece. There was nothing on the menu, that cost beyond 40/-. Ain’t it a blast. The food was so good, that we went there one evening from mangalore ( 1 hrs drive). It was worth it friends. So if you r in Manipal, any time, visit this place , my friends. You come across it on your way to the Go-kart zone. Go ahead! Make your day! You won’t even glance at Mcdonalds after this.