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

Hyderabadi's Travel Update

With my trip for an offsite meet, I really did not get a chance to update the blog.. My trip to kerala was very exhausting but rewarding. An excellent networking opportunity with global leadership teams. It exceeded all my expectations of an offsite meet. Work and Fun were well balanced with a cruise on kerala backwaters, snake boat races and performing arts demonstrations including panjavadyam, thayyam, kalari-payattu ( martial arts ) etc., and my favourite was kalari-payatt.

Kerala Cuisine, was heavily based in coconut sauces, and was centered around SeaFood/Fish dishes. I dont remember the names of all the dishes, but overall the food was excellent. I tried every item in the buffet for the first 2 days and ended up with an upset stomach towards the end of day 3. My favourite of all was Ada-Pradhamam { a payasam like dessert made with jaggery etc. }

2 Months since My Arrival

Its exactly 2 months since I arrived in hyderabad... No regrets, no challenges to deal with, enjoyed every bit of my stay here... bottomless biryani buffets... litres of teachers and blenderspride scotch [ may be thats a little exaggerated ;-) ] and the ability to re-live in a fun culture of dakhani [ hyderabadi ] phrases including my favourites "maakki kiri kiri" and "bindaas". Today I really laughed when a team member said "pareshan mat lena sir....", to calm me down about an issue....

In the last 60 days, I was able to complete the basic tasks like renting a house in hyderabad, move in, get connected, hire a maid+driver and move my family here. Couple of things I am really behind on are my son's school, drive on my own [ need to figure out how to get a license and insurance ], physical fitness / gym and a pet project I started while I was in the US. I hope to get on track by the 100th day or so..

With the global nature of the business that Indians deal with, work hours are not well defined. The higher you climb the ladder, the worse it gets.. though not a daily activitiy, you are expected to participate in calls, reviews etc., with australiam/APAC customers in the morning, Europeans in the afternoon and America's in the evenings. So a workday of mine goes from 11am to 7pm on some days to 2pm to 10pm on somedays. The best part is that you get to slack off on both Indian as well as Customer Holidays ;-). Companies have adapted well to this global demands with extensive work from home options, including wireless internet, vpn, blackberries/other devices that are tied into the company phone networks so that you have a virtual office extension that comes with you all the time.

Some of you asked me about lunch etc.. so here it goes. Cafeteria's at work are very well maintained / managed in many of the large companies. Food goes from the traditional thali between Rs 25 to 50 depending on the options along with traditional offerings like biryani, curry+paratha etc. at less than Rs 50 for a large serving. Cafeterias also have free coffee/nescafe/tea machines along with a coffeeday express or similar store that offers gourmet coffee between Rs 10 to 30 depending on your choice. Other standard things include a bakery counter where you can buy puffs, rolls, breads, sandwiches between Rs 5 to Rs 20, and a fruit bar that offers a medley of fresh fruits from Rs 10 to Rs 20 based on the size of serving. In some locations of our organization, food is free for the basic thali type and you pay extra for others. In some organizations like google, its all free including the gourmet varieties of everything and anything.

More later...

Hyderabad Subway Experience : Did I tell you how much I love Ohri's

After devouring tons of Hyderabadi Dum biryani+mirch salan, and gobs and gobs of kubanee ka meetha, I finally took a u turn and tried the subway in Hyderabad at Jubilee Hills.

Everything from the baking ovens to the wrapping paper looked like they were imported or made for subway in India to look exactly like the ones in the US. I looked through the menu and found some interesting knock-offs like "Chicked Meatball", "Roasted Chicked" etc., On the local favourites menu were the Tikka Sub etc., that attracted my attention and I ordered one of the 6" tikka sub on wheat bread.

Wheat bread was cut and the attendant pulled out a small cup of pre-cooked chiken tikka and heated it up in the microwave. After that the normal toppings of lettuce, tomato, onions were followed by a gooey-yellowish-brown liquid which he referred to as mustard followed by a coating of mint-mayo. I ordered a nestea w/lime [ close cousing to the southern sweet tea.. which I am a fan of ] to go along with the sub.

Now to the um.. um.. ummmm.. part.. The taste was as expected... but I could not taste the chiken or the tikka due to the size of the bread compared to the amount of chicken that was in my sub. May be I should try their tuna next time to see how that goes.... and the tikka sub... I prefer the Ohri's Tandoor chicken sandwich anyday over the Tikka Sub.

This shop at jubilee hills, has a move-n-pick icecream store integrated into the same premises as the subway and I tried a scoop of their banana icecream, which I thought was creamy but slighly bland for my taste.. My all time favourite in hyderabad so far is Ohri's "Awful Awful" sundae .. [ I was introduced to this by my friend's daughter sne ] and I am yet to find something that can beat it..

Next Post.. Little Italy,a italian-vegeterian restaurant .