We probably mentioned previously that before booking any of our travel packages we research all of the accommodations. This was our fourth Gate 1 Travel tour and the hotels have never let us down.
Originally, this tour package showed us staying at one of the Trident Hotel properties in Jaipur. However, somewhere it was changed to the Radisson Jaipur City Center. We were staying two nights, it was centrally located and we’d had a great experience with the Radisson Blu in Nairobi on our Gate 1 Discovery Small Group Kenya trip.
Quite Quiet
It appeared that leisure and business travel had both started to quiet down by the time we reached Jaipur. The hotel was fairly quiet and because of government regulations the spa and pool were both closed.
Truthfully, after a long day of travel and sightseeing, we wouldn’t have taken time for either of these. The hotel lobby and the rooms were beautiful, modern, and well kept.
We checked in, grabbed a quick lunch, headed out for more sightseeing, and made it back in time for dinner. We chose to stay in the hotel for both, just to keep things simple.
Dragon House
Pan Asian and Indo-Chinese food seems to be exceptionally popular in India and it was about the ninth day of our trip. To be completely honest, as much as we both LOVE Indian food and even cook quite a bit at home – Indian food for breakfast, lunch and dinner were getting a bit old and we were ready for a little break.
The Dragon House restaurant is beautiful, decorated in bright red, with black lacquer furniture, and dragon sculptures and Chinese artwork.
The menu was much larger than we expected and included both Chinese and Thai foods.
We arrived toward the end of lunch and had the entire restaurant to ourselves. The server could not have been friendlier and the service was impeccable. She insisted on serving the Vegetable Dumplings (375 Rupees) we were sharing as an appetizer, our tea and our entrees.
For lunch, I had Singapore Rice Noodles with Chicken (450 Rupees) and Chuck had spicy Dan Dan Noodles with Chicken (450 Rupees). Total for lunch in a higher-end hotel came to 1,275 Rupees or $16.75 before tax and service charge.
Mosaic
After a busy afternoon, we came back and joined some friends for a quiet dinner in Mosaic, the hotel’s restaurant where we also had our breakfasts. It had a great menu with Indian and Western foods. They offered everything from Risotto to Fish and Chips, Chicken Cordon Bleu, and Pizza.
I’m a pizza junky and usually try some pizza wherever we travel. Usually with some local ingredients. But, I decided to keep it simple and went with the Princess Pizza (550 Rupees) Fresh Tomato, Mozzarella, and Sweet Basil.
Not the best pizza I’ve ever had, and as you can see it had no basil, but it certainly wasn’t the worst I’ve ever had.
Chuck went for the Chicken Biryani (600 Rupees) and a Plain Naan (125 Rupees). The Biryani was very good and had plenty of chicken. And, from what we can tell there is no such thing as bad naan in India. Dinner before tax and service charge, including two Diet Cokes (125 Rupees each) came to 1,400 Rupees or $18.45
We had the daily breakfast buffet included in our tour package. The buffet included some western dishes, a lot of Indian breakfast foods, some pastry and they kept us full of Chai.
Overall, the hotel was very nice. The restaurants had excellent food and were much less expensive than we would have anticipated for a hotel of this quality.
