Originally, Bundi was not an important destination on my travel itinerary; it was just a stopping point on the way to other larger destinations along the route. I was planning to only spend one night in Bundi, but after discovering several unexpected local food spots while visiting Bundi’s fort and step wells during my travels, I stayed for a total of three nights instead of one.
Day One: Settling In and a First Wrong Turn That Worked Out
We arrived in the early afternoon, tired from a longer drive than expected, and went looking for a late lunch somewhere near our guesthouse. We took a wrong turn into a narrow lane and ended up at a tiny place with no signage in English, just a handwritten board and a man frying kachoris to order. We had no idea what we were ordering beyond pointing, and ended up with a plate of pyaaz kachori, onion-stuffed and fried fresh, served with a green chutney sharp enough to clear your sinuses. It remains one of the better unplanned meals either of us has had anywhere in Rajasthan.
Because we were walking back to our hotel after having seen the Taragarh Fort from below, we stopped by a local sweets shop that was packed with people ordering rabri (a local treat). The owner noticed that we were watching them inside, and he kicked it up a notch and handed us two sample cups of rabri to try before we ordered them. I purchased much more than I needed.
Day Two: A Slow Morning and a Thali Worth Returning For
The second day was similar to the first. During the cooler morning hours, I walked along the ghats (steps leading down) to Budhi’s many step wells, and then for lunch I discovered a little family-owned restaurant near the main bazaar. It was serving thali-style food (small plates of different dishes) cooked more like at home than in a restaurant. The thali here leaned heavily on local Rajasthani staples, gatte ki sabzi, a gram-flour dumpling curry, alongside a thinner, spiced dal and bajra roti rather than the wheat we’d been eating elsewhere on the trip.
In the afternoon, after climbing up to Taragarh Fort properly this time, we stopped at a stall near the base selling mirchi vada, a stuffed and fried green chilli that sounded like it would be far too sharp. It, however, turned out to be balanced carefully enough that we ordered a second round before leaving.
Day Three: Returning to Favourites Before Leaving
By the third day, we’d stopped looking for new places entirely and simply returned to what we already knew worked. Breakfast was poha from a small stall near the guesthouse that we’d discovered almost by accident on day two, and lunch was the same gatte ki sabzi thali from the day before, which the owner seemed genuinely pleased to see us back for.
Our last stop before leaving was the kachori place from day one, mostly because we couldn’t leave Bundi without going back at least once. The same man was frying the same kachoris, and the chutney was exactly as sharp as we remembered it.
Why Bundi Felt Complete in a Way Bigger Stops Hadn’t?
Looking back, none of these meals would feature on any formal list of Bundi’s best food. They were small, mostly unplanned, and found largely by accident or by following a smell down a lane rather than any deliberate research. But they gave the town a texture that the fort and the stepwells alone hadn’t quite managed, a sense of actually knowing a few corners of the place rather than simply having seen them.
For anyone planning a similarly unhurried stop here, booking hotels online ahead of arrival is worth doing even for a place as small as Bundi, since the better guesthouses near the old town fill up faster than the size of the town would suggest, particularly during the cooler months between October and March. Staying centrally, within walking distance of both the fort and the bazaar, made it easy to keep wandering back to the same small stalls without needing to think much about getting there.
We left Bundi later than planned and a little reluctantly, mostly because of the food we hadn’t expected to matter as much as it ended up mattering.
