A Treat @ TreatWay

The day was saturday and the occasion was the long-delayed Birthday party of moi friend Mr.Lazybug. The members over at FreeHyderabad were pestering him long for a treat! And it finally materialised yesterday :).Though there arised a few dissents as to whether it was an official treat, we'll take it The Venue was the newly-opened hotel – NKM's Grand over at Erramanzil, just a few mins walk from Taj Krishna. It was an accredited 3 Star hotel and had a Lounge Bar – Unwind; a Vegetarian Coffee Shop – Swathi Coffee SHop; and a multicuisine restaurant – TreatWay!

It was the latter to which we made a beline for. I was the one to reach the last and found that everyone had already started. The Restaurant has a multi-cuisine Buffet spread which is priced very competitively at Rs 135 per person which included a pint of Beer! Now thatz a real steal, if I may say so! The only soup on ofer was Mulligatawny Soup which was rather bland in taste. There were a couple of drinks- Fruit Punch, a combination of orange & mango; and another called Green Lagoon, which looked suspiciously like a Mint-flavoured drink but which turned out to be a Pineapple-based one! I was the only one to try it out and believe me, it was yuck! There were nothing of the sort of starters or appetizers, though a few chaats & salads were there….and so were some Dahi Wadas! So much so for being a curd-hater! Main course had 4 Non-Vegetarian items, Mutton Biriyani (which, strangely enough, was bereft of any flesh pieces!) Chicken Chilly, Chepala Pulusu a.k.a Fish Gravy & Kadhai Chicken. We veggies had to be satisfied with a wierdly named Moti Palau , Karela Fry, Paneer Kofta Curry, Bhindi Do Piaza, Veg. Soft Noodles, Veg. in hot garlic sauce and rotis…apart from the ubiquitious Rice, Mudda Pappu, Sambhar & Rasam! Crispies & Papads were conspicous by their absence 👿

Though it was a decent enough spread, the fact that none of the dishes were 'excellent' – a few were barely palatable- made it quite an average kinda lunch. If it wasn't for the company of vivacious friends , all of us whom were equally vocal in our denigration of Balayya , it would'ave been a boring outing! The Lunch was topped up with a generous helpings of desserts which included Vanilla & Strawberry Ice Cream, Fruit Souffle, Strawberry Rabidi, Gulab Jamoons and Semiya Payasam! All of'em were A1 and extremely tasty. Yours truly helped himself to almost six helpings !!! And yeah, we availed of the six pints of beer – one for each one of us- but all of it went to one deserving friend- Smack Bhai 😉

All in all, it was a decent enough experience at NKM Grand's TreatWay and since it was the first visit for all of us, there were absolutely zero expectations. So nothing to lose. The fact that it was attached to a hotel labeled 3 star, should make them conscious towards preparing slightly better varieties of food! Ambience of the restaurant was okay on the whole but the arrangement of the spread could'ave been somewhat better, 'twas too crowded at times. Service was tacky and slow. Huge improvement is needed on that front if it has to compete with the other popular eateries around.