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

Hyderabad Italian Food : Little Italy

I went to this little italian vegetarian restaurant called Little italy near Jubilee Hills Checkpost in Hyderabad. I was introduced to this by a close friend of mine.. I know, a lot of you are thinking, finally he is talking about vegetarian stuff.. I am a big fan of vegetarian dishes as long as it has atleast a starter that is non-..

It has a very well designed interior with the smallest restrooms I have ever seen in a restaurant. If I remember from my last visit to Hyderabad, this place was used for a parking/cellar for the building above. Looks like they have turned the parking space into a restaurant and the space was so well utilized that their power generator sits at the edge of the road. I Wonder if they will convert to a take-out joint the next time MCH expands this road.

First Visit : Menu was extensive and has too many choices to pick from. We ordered a couple of thin crust pizza's [ thats the only kind they seem to make ] along with an order of Eggplan parmesan [ who else would order that ? ]. The pizza came out well, but the crust was burnt in some places making it taste wierd. A friend ordered with black beans and it sucked, I ordered a Pepper-oni pizza I ordered [ not the real pepperoni, its peppers on the pizza.. duh what would you expect in a veggie joint ? ]. Reasonably priced, Nice place, but I could not order any drinks since it was Oct 2nd, which is a dry day in India.

Second Visit : It was my team's choice to meet here for a going away party and no one knew that it was vegeterian until one of them said.."Can we have a chicken starter to go with our drinks..". One of the team members decided to order grilled mushrooms in olive oil and it sucked big time... On the second round, the manager recommended that we go with the onion rings [ nothing italian about them.. but were good with the drinks ] followed by Chips + Salsa.. [ you heard it right.. eating chips and salsa at an italian place .. ]. Main course again was a combination of pizzas and they were delicious this time. [ We took extra care to avoid the ones with beans ]

When it was time to pay the bill, manager informed us that the credit card machine was down and that he could not accept the corporate credit card. After a few tries he gave up and offered to pick up the payment at the office the next day. It would have been a major pain to let him into the building etc., and we pooled the cash to pay off the bill.

Overall we enjoyed the food, but I would not recommend the outside seating since you are pretty much on the road and can hear and smell the automobiles around you.

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 .