Zorabians, a Heaven for Chicken and Eggs!

Situated on Karjat – Khopoli Marg, lies the factory outlet for Zorabian Chickens, a heaven for chicken meat lovers.

The outlet sells Chicken cheese and onion sausages and spicy sausages that are to die for, the other cold cuts includes Chicken Salami and Burger Patty’s. Zorabian offers a range of Kababs that can be cooked in ten minutes, the Chicken Malai, Tandoori and Reshmi kabbas all available at a discounted price.

Although the main revenue stream of this outlet is mostly chicken scraps, that includes, wings for lollipops, head and feet, chicken curry pieces which is the carcass and skin. They also have boneless chicken, liver and gizzard by the kilo as well.


If your lucky, you may be able to pick up a bunch of eggs, these are by far the strangest eggs I have seen, each one has different colors and sizes, theres no consistency which makes it feel more natural, but sometimes a little oddly shaped and over sized. Eggs can set you back from Rs 2 – Rs 4 an egg depending on the size. The eggs aren’t broiler, they are coloured like desi eggs and if you’re lucky you may get your hands on some pullet eggs.


We visit Zorabian every alternate week where we pick up the curry pieces for our dogs, the rate fluctuates between Rs 20 – Rs 35 a kilo. While the chicken head and feet cost Rs 10 – Rs 12 per kilo. The cold cuts have a 10% - 20% off on the MRP, which makes the long drive from Karjat to Khopoli worth it.

Especially when you are going to Mumbai or Pune, buying ten packets of cold cuts can save you approximately Rs 200 off the MRP. If you ever visit Godrej’s Nature Basket, you would find the same Cheese and Onion sausages selling for a price of Rs 300 approx.

So what are you waiting for, pay a visit to Zorabian, feast of some chicken meat. On another note a lot of the local hotels in Karjat pick up their meat from here.

Raj Cottage, a Popular Breakfast Haunt in Karjat

On a beautiful rainy day if you are looking for a place to have a nice, steaming breakfast, then Raj Cottage would be a good choice. Located on the Chowk-Karjat Road, the restaurant churns out local delicacies like Vada pav, misal pav, tasty South Indian cuisine and Indian fare as well.

From Idli sambar to different kinds of dosas, uttapams, etc., Raj Cottage is priced reasonably. We've been there a couple of times, and have noticed that the quality of food has improved as compared to a year back, when the place didn't even have a clean menu card.

Raj Cottage serves lunch and dinner as well - Indian food with rotis, kulchas which is decent but not as delicious as the breakfast. The cost of a normal Indian dish like Veg Makhanwala or Paneer Mutter range from Rs 90 onwards, they also have some interesting dishes like Cheese Angoori or Paneer Pasanda.

The restaurant is crowded on weekends and lot of locals visit during the week. The payment service could be lousy at times, especially at the cash counter, who will take their own time to prepare the bill.

A must try would be Shri icecream, a Gujarat-based company, which has an outlet right outside the restaurant. All the flavours cost Rs 30, and is a good desert to have after a heavy meal - we prefer butterscotch and black currant. Although we mostly visit Raj Cottage for breakfast, overall its among the few choices of decent restaurants present in Karjat.

Closed Canal Leads to Water Woes in Karjat

A few days ago we had a welcome break from the soaring temperatures in Karjat, with the summer temperature outdoors doing more than 40 degrees celcius, the passing shower was a short respite from the heat.

But thats not all the woes we have had to complain about, the plan on expanding and cementing the canal undertaken by the government for the last two summers has caused far more pain to not only the villagers, farm owners and the eco system as well.

Tata Power dam in Bhivpuri, sends the water used for electricity generation either into the river or the canal, this water is used by the local farmers to have an extra reliable crop of rice. Reliable, because its not dependent on the rain, that sometimes lasts longer and can ruin the crop instead of being beneficial.

So in short over the last two years we have had no extra rice growing, we have had a tremendous increase in brick kilns, unfortunately without chimneys so the smoke, which is extremely harmful for health hovering around us, they also use tremendous amounts of water to mold the bricks.

The lack of canal water had made the entire water table go down, in areas from Sangli, Takve, Kadav have all been drastically affected. Currently Takve village has only functioning borewell which has the entire village qued up.

We have lost over 40 trees in the last two years due to the lack of water, currently we get around 200 liters of water every 6 hours to survive till the rains. But a rainbow of hope floats above us as we see the big dark clouds marching in.

Yesterdays cloud burst above us, provided much needed water to help our plants and trees survive. Lets hope we have a few more till the arrival of the monsoons.

With the rains, comes the end of the brick making, the plants and trees rejuvinate, the birds begin to mate, the water table replenishes and our lovely Karjat, turns green again. Heres to another lovely monsoon season in Green Karjat!

Karjat King ~ A Treat for the Veggies

Vegetarian restaurants seem to be a trend in Karjat, here comes another that proclaims itself as the king, Karjat King!

After sampling their dishes three times, I think its safe for us to put a review up. Although we have eaten at the restaurant only once, the other times we took a parcel. The best part about the restaurant is that it serves Mushroom dishes.Their Mushroom Tikka Masala, is quite yummy and so are the other dishes they offer. Compared to Raj Cottage and Royal Garden, Karjat King's quality of food and taste are better, since its a new restaurant I guess this is the only way it can make a name for itself.The time we ate over there or even taking a parcel, service is a little bit off and the coffee cups were not as clean as you would want them to be :( That was a little bit on the downside. The other downside there were so many dishes on the breakfast menu that were not available, dosas, sandwiches, the only thing that was available was the medu vada and idli sambar.Apart from that the dishes were nice and new, there's no ambiance, seating is fairly simple but the food cost is not really cheap or too expensive. Part of the menu is placed below for you to judge, its approximately the same cost as Raj Cottage and a bit more expensive as compared to Royal Garden. The restaurant is located at the corner of the Karjat to Khopoli road.

Update December 1st, 2012

This restaurant has closed down probably because of less customers.

BSNL's Internet Service in Karjat

When we moved from Mumbai to Karjat we were very apprehensive about the Internet services in Karjat, since we use to have problems with Tata Indicom's service in Mumbai, we expected the worse, especially being a rural area.

But our country is full of surprises, since BSNL was a major ISP here and with a few relatives who live in Goa recommending BSNL connections we decided to try them out. We first purchased a CDMA datacard with national roaming that we still use. The card has been used in Pune, Goa, the sad part is that it doesn't work in Mumbai, but works all around India for a cost of Rs 550 a month plus taxes, our total volume of usage has been over 16 GB of data transfer.

No other ISP offers you an unlimited data card plan for so cheap, with speeds of around 8 - 12 KB on an average. With the help of BSNL we managed to get a landline since the cable was around 150 meters away, we hired a JCB got the cable put in and our connection in such a short span of time it was fantastic. We are now on a 512KB unlimited plan and its uptime is around 95% which is way better than what we had in the city.

Mr. Singh and Mr. Jhangham from BSNL Karjat were extremely helpful while we were getting our connection. Today Mr. Singh is in Mumbai while Mr. Jhangham still helps, if you need to get an Internet connection in Karjat, don't look any further, your solution is BSNL.

5% downtime isn't too much,it seems sometimes locals who provide phone services tend to cut the cable so as to help kill the more affordable solution. So in case your are laying a broadband cable it has to be around 3 feet deep to avoid this from happening.

We would sincerely like to thank BSNL Karjat for providing us with this wonderful service, allowing us to survive in the midst of nature! Thank you everyone at BSNL for the hard-work that goes into providing your services in Karjat.

To make it easier we have uploaded all the forms required for a new telephone & Internet connection, yopu have to get a landline to apply for Internet.

Download BSNLs New Internet Connection Forms

Bsnl Karjat Contact Numbers:

Customer Care - 221399/222599
Customer Care Karjat Urban - 221499
Customer Care Karjat Rural - 221000