Had been to the newly-opened 6Pack Health Food outlet in Ameerpet. Checkout the writeup here.
6Pack is a chain of restaurants in Hyderabad that offers you a better way to enjoy the food you love. We believe in the simple concept of providing affordable options for lunch and dinner that are both delicious and nutritious.
[6Pack Cuisine]
Had been to the newly-opened Restaurant – Still Waters – yesterday. Writeup about that can be found here.
Rajdhani Thali – the Mumbai-based chain of Thali hotels has recently opened its branch in Hyderabad and I had a chance to visit it yesterday. I generally prefer wholesome thalis even though I’m pretty finicky about not eating some of the items (Curd and raithas for instance) and the North Indian is my usual choice.Having never partaken of a Gujarati Thali before, I was looking forward to enjoy it at Rajdhani Thali.
The hotel is located on the fourth floor of the Big Bazaar mall on the Ameerpet main road and was half-full on a chilly Friday night. I realised later that all of them were Gujjus! The Ambience of the hotel is pretty good, with the entrance containing various banners proclaiming Rajdhani’s pedigree and popularity in Mumbai and also a nifty counter announcing the number of thalis they have served till date! AFAIR, the number was somewhere in the 5-lakh range!!! The seating is minimal, with plain wooden chairs and tables – somewhat wobbly though! As I sat down, I was kinda surprised at the size of the thali on the table. They actually put the empty thali and bowls on the table and fill-in the items later. There were 10 bowls that would translate into 10 items and two steel glasses – one for water and the other, as I was to know in a short while, was for Lassi (ugh!). Now, Rajdhani Thali’s menu is as varied as Gujarati food and they have a different menu for each day. Catch up with their entire menu here. On that particular night, the items were: Green Salad, Bhajiya, Khaman, Batti with Jaggery and Ghee, Dhokhla, Masala Potli (kind of a Kachori), Phulkas, Rajgiri Theplas, Sweet Kadi, Dal, Gobi ki sabzi, Chana sabzi (almost 5 kinds of chanas), some other curry which had brown round-shaped manchurian balls, Papads, Imli ki Chutney and Kesari Petha. There were also Kadi Pakoda, Khichdi, Curd rice and Lassi that I didn’t partake of. Phew! that seems quite a lot, doesn’t it? All the items are unlimited i.e. one can have as much as one wants. Only the desserts are limited – only one to choose from four choices. The food was piping hot and straight from the kitchen, rotis and curries were fresh and so were the salads and accompaniments. Not everyone likes Gujarati food, especially an all-vegetarian fare but one can surely enjoy the sheer variety that it offers and also the typical names that its cuisine holds out….thepla, dhokla, baati, khaman….grrovyyyy!!!! Continue reading
The Lifestyle building at Begumpet is a teeming and happening place. Itz got one of the biggest and glitziest shopping brand store, a MusicWorld, some IT Companies, few Bio firms, many a commercial offices and a whole lot of eateries and restaurants. Itz got a Roll Call, a Subway, a nondescript Bakery, a Deli 9; pubs n’ rest-O-bars like Carrot, Sparks, Club 8; Restaurants like Malgudi, Urban Tadka, Kabura, L’autre and Haveli. It was to the last-mentioned place that we trooped in today afternoon to have some nice time and of corz, to have some nice grub!
Haveli is a typical Hyderabadi restaurant that specializes in well, Hyderabadi and North-Indian cuisine. By North-Indian, I mean essentially Punjabi but there’s a smattering of Mughlai fare also. Like oh-so-many restaurants in the city, Haveli too had fallen in-line with the buffet bandwagon i.e. it had a lunch buffet on offer. We had quite some waiting to do, what with it being a busy lunch hour and with so many companies in the vicinity, it was bound to be full with luncheoners. It seems that the restaurant has had an experience of sorts with waiting people; that explains the nicely-decored waiting area – both within and out of the main entrance. Chairs were laid out to accommodate atleast twenty people and every few minutes, we’ll be informed of the “just a few minutes more” time would take in getting us tables! It took no more than twenty minutes to get us seated though. The first thing that I liked was the seating. The six-seater table was amply wide and there was plenty of elbow-room….quite unlike a few other places where it would be well-nigh impossible to keep both hands on the table and not knock-up one’s neighbour! Decor was minimal (no fancy fountains or stones n sceneries) and lighting was good. There was soft karaoke music playing in the background that was just about at the right volume.
The Buffet spread is priced moderately at INR 180 (+ taxes) & starts off with the usual soups n’ starters (one each of veg and non-veg), which I think is too little. A single starter is somewhat boring…even more so when it is the ubiquitous Veg. Manchuria! Veg. Hot n Sour soup was ok though. The Main course spread was quite good…in number. There was Biryani, Chicken and Lamb for the meat-lovers and Veg. Biryani, Paneer saagwala, Chana Masala, Aloo Jeera and Mixed Veg. for the green-lovers. There were a few salads too – sprouts, the regular carrot/onion/cucumber, chicken salad, aloo-chana chaat and boiled egg with cheese n’ sauces etc. And keeping in-line with the multi-cuisine nature of the spread, there was chow-chow, schezwan noodles & spring onion fried rice in Chinese and talimpu rice & dahi wadas in Southie ishtyle! Rotis and Naans were served hot off-the-charcoals at the tables itself. Quite a lot of food, right? And I didn’t even mention the steamed rice, sambhar and dal fry!!! Food was good and not too-spicy. The chana were a bit hard though! Tasting all the items would require some taking to do, but the all-round consensus was that the food was good. Not excellent or pathetic, but just good! Dum Biryani is their speciality and they sure showed that in both the Veg and non-veg avatars.
