Hyderabad Restaurant Review : Malgudi

Recent opening of the lumbini mall added 3 more restaurants in the Jubilee/Banjara area right around touch. These include Zaffran Laguna [ Mediterranean ], Malgudi [ South Indian ] and Basil [ Vegan Cuisine ].

The mall itself is still under construction, but this is a centrally located building very close to KBR and right next to touch. I envy the few friends who were able to grab some commercial space in this mall a long time ago.

Malgudi, a restaurant which claims to be specialized in southern delicacies, is located on the 4th floor in the mall. Interestingly all restaurants are on the same floor and malgudi doesnt have a restroom within its premises.. not sure how they agreed to that..

The interiors are very well done with traditional hardwood props and its very inviting. Once we settled down, I realized that it was the most confusing and interesting menu I have ever seen in a south indian restaurant. The menu was organized by state instead of the traditional starters, main course etc. Each page was dedicated to a state and it covered Andhra, Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Kerala

Now to the experience.. I scanned the menu multiple times to make sure that I was not missing the traditional souther appetizers and to my shock the waiter just recommended typical paneer tikka, spring rolls and other chinese starters. Followed by that we tried to order the maincourse from the traditional non-andhra stuff but were left scratching our heads since the waitstaff was of no help in recommending any of the dishes. When we tried to ask for help, they went back to recommending the Dal Makhni and Malai Kofta [ which was a story in itself.. ] instead of even trying to speak about or sell the traditional fare listed in the colorful menu.

After dinner, we decided to order a dessert, and since I had prior experience in Kerala with adapradhamam which was the only unique dessert on the menu for a Hyderabadi. As expected the waiter walked back to us to let us know that Kubhani-Ka-Meetha [ typical hyderabadi dessert ] was the only dessert available.. We decided to eat what ever they had since it was late to go somewhere else for a dessert and called it a day pretty dissapointed with the whole experience.

• Restaurant : Malgudi
• Affordability : 8/10 [ Around Rs 350 / head for a meal + soft drinks ]
• Food Score : 6/10 [ dissatisfied since we were literally forced to eat north indian food in a southern restaurant ]
• Ambience : 7/10
• Wait Staff : 5/10 [ friendly & confused about what they really serve in this place.. ]
• Overall : 6/10