Hotel Review : The Claridges, Surajkund

Back in July, I got to spend a couple of nights in The Claridges, Surajkund. The hotel itself is very nice and spacious and is located about 25 km from the airport. As you enter the hotel the lobby and the reception is very spacious and inviting.

The room
The room is very spacious and airy. All the amenities that one expects in a 5 star hotel are present. We did not get much time to spend in the room as it was quite a hectic 2 days filled with meetings and discussions.

The swimming pool
The swimming pool is really nice. We spent a lot of time in the pool - might explain the lack of time spent in the room :). The swimming pool is next to the spa and it is an elevated pool with nice privacy. The water was warm and just lovely to lounge in for hours together. They do not sell swimming gear at the hotel so make sure you carry it and also they are quite strict with the clothing in the pool.

Restaurants and Bars

Dhaba - is a north Indian restaurant that has a rustic feel to it. The food is good and very tasty but also very very expensive. The bar Azure is a great place to just relax and have a drink. The Coffee Shop serves up a very good breakfast in the morning and there was not a single dish that I did not like - they were all tasty.


Other facilities
We used the conference room facilities and they were quite impressive and well equipped. The only issue we faced was with the internet connection. They also do have a gym that is well equipped and a spa. Although I did not visit the spa those who did go for a treatment came back very happy and contented.

The hotel is very nice to spend a day or two in away from the hustle and bustle of Delhi to just relax and unwind. There is not much to do in the immediate vicinity of the hotel unless you have a vehicle of your own. Call cabs do come to the hotel if you call them well in advance. Spur of the moment activities to do outside the hotel without transport is non existent unless you are willing to pay the heavy price of hiring a cab from the hotel.

Review : Novotel Hyderabad International Airport

A couple of weeks ago I got to spend a night at the Novotel International Airport Hotel. The hotel is located in shamshabad about 3 km from the International Airport. The hotel is 5 star and there are a lot of facilities available at the hotel to keep one engaged for a day. In this article I will review some of the facilities I did get to use in the airport.

The room
The room is very ordinary. There are a lot of other 5 star hotels that have rooms that are much more spacious and luxurious. There are two views, the swimming pool view and the airport view but there is not much to view either way so it does not make much of a difference. The room has all the standard accessories and fittings one expects in a 5 star hotel.   We did not get any night service where the bed is prepared to sleep in. Newspapers are only given on request. The television has a few foreign language channels other than the usual cable channels that one gets in India.
The Square

I had all my meals at the square. That is lunch and dinner on the first day and breakfast the next morning. The lunch was regular 5 star restaurant quality food with some live counters one for Chinese, one for pizza and pasta and so on. The food was nothing to be overly excited about. In the night they had a more international spread with dishes from different countries including a sushi counter. The food again was average - didn't really go for seconds. The breakfast was very average - the Indian food was actually bad. Would I spend money to have food here again - not with the current quality. There are a lot of better places to eat in Hyderabad. Although around the hotel there are no places, one would have to go to the airport for fast food kind of fare. There is a free shuttle that one can take to the airport from the hotel.

Swimming Pool

The swimming pool is within the confines of the hotel so it is surrounded on two sides by rooms and on one side by The Square.  The depth of the entire pool is only 4 feet and there is a smaller kids pool of 2.5 feet. There is not much sunshine that hits the pool other than in the afternoon when the sun is overhead and being December the water was really cold even at noon. We saw the person adding a lot of chlorine powder into the pool in the morning. Only towels are available at the pool and there is no lifeguard. They were not strict on the dress code while getting into the water.The problem is also that the pool is in a very public place so there are a lot of watchful eyes all the time. So anyone who is public shy will not be comfortable swimming in this pool.

Gymnasium 

The Gym is quite big and has a lot of equipment. There was no trainer available and also there were very few people using the gym. They have a nice table tennis table with quite a bit of space around the table to have a good game, the bats and balls are present with the spa front desk next to the table. They also have a sauna separate for men and women.

The other facilities at the hotel include another restaurant called Haldi that serves indian food and The Bar that you will see as soon as you enter the hotel. The 02 spa is quite extensive and have quite a few pricey treatments on offer. For sport, they also have a basketball court and a beach volleyball court.

Generally the staff is a bit cold and they don't make you feel at home and comfortable. On the whole it was just an okay stay with okay food and some okay entertainment options. No real wow factor here.

Dialogues in the dark

A few days ago I went to have dinner in the new themed restaurant "Dialogues in the dark" which is located at Inorbit Mall, Madhapur, Hyderabad. Having read about the restaurant at the website and a few reviews in the WOW Hyderabad magazine I was quite excited. So gave them a call to make a reservation and was told that I can choose either a non vegetarian meal or vegetarian meal.

We arrived there at about 8:00 PM and paid for our meals which needs to be done in advance and it costs Rs. 750 per person all inclusive. Any cold drinks (no liquor is served) purchased in the restaurant were to be paid for after the meal. We were then asked to deposit our mobile phones and any other bags we were carrying in the locker there. We were then escorted to the door and then handed over to a visually impaired person who guided us into a pitch dark place. It is incredibly eerie when you walk in first as you cannot see anything not even your finger if it is a centimeter from your eyes. You are guided to your seat and the table is already set when you get there.

You are then served a 4 course meal starting with soup, a starter, a main course and a dessert. The meals are served slowly and there is a lot of time for one to munch on their food and wait. The meal itself wasn't much of a surprise, to put it simply there was tomato soup; chicken nuggets for starters; biryani, romali roti, dalh, chicken curry and some stuff i never even found on my plate; a custard kind of a dish for dessert. The food is eaten completely by touch and feel. There is cutlery to be used but again one has to feel for it. After a while you get a comfort in where everything is and then it becomes quite easy. The water is served in bottles and one can order from a variety of soft drinks to be had with the food.

Since the restaurant is completely dark you do not know how many others are there in the restaurant or how far apart they are. The two tables next to us seemed to be quite close to us as we could hear all the conversations quite clearly.

The experience was interesting for just the one visit. The food was not exciting - with the first taste we knew what was on the plate. The food was not very tasty. The chairs were quite uncomfortable. One interesting thing is that there is an verbal interaction going on between the people as no one knows who is there and how many people are there. The noise levels are quite high - conversation is quite loud and animated.

What in my view will make the experience more exciting? All the food should only be bite sized helpings - they should feel the same but when you put it in the mouth each bite tastes different. There should be a surprise element in every bite. Serving regular food does not really enhance the experience. The chairs should be super comfortable so that when you sit in them it should feel like you never want to get out of it. The music at times was a bit loud - the music should be very faint in the background.

On the whole an interesting experience for that one time and its worth going there to understand what happens when one of the senses is taken away.

Understanding Coffee Drinks

Have you ever walked into a coffee shop and wondered what to order having not been able to understand the different coffee drinks available on the menu? Lokesh Dhakar in this post does an amazing job in explaining the different coffee drinks. Below are the images for the types of coffee drinks that I have seen in the Indian coffee shop menus. Happy coffee drinking.

Americano [uh-mer-i-kan-oh]	Caffé Latte [caf-ay lah-tey]
Caffé Mocha [caf-ay moh-kuh]	Cappuccino [kapp-oo-chee-noh]
Espresso [ess-press-oh]

Is eating out too expensive ?

You hear a lot of it in the news that food prices are rising and that people are not able to afford to eat out any more.

Today we paid a visit to Paradise Restaurant in Hyderabad and ordered take away (Read my earlier post Food in Hyderabad about why you should do take-away and not eat at Paradise) and here is what we got for a gift pack that costed us Rs. 220.

• 1 Chicken Biryani
• 1 Mutton Biryani
• 6 pieces of kebabs
• 1 Butter Chicken
• 2 Romali Rotis

We usually eat Biryani from Hyderabad House and all of the items mentioned above would have costed us nothing less that Rs. 500.

A few days ago we ate in Chutneys and for just 1 palak paneer, 4 rotis, 1 soup and 1 plate of idli the bill came up to Rs. 450. Chutneys used to not be this expensive - its only of late that they have really increased their prices. And on the other hand the small idly-dosa tiffin joints that you see all over Hyderabad have pretty much kept their prices stable.

Another kind of restaurant that most people eat from is what they call a "mess" in Hyderabad. They serve a "meal" in these messes that consist of portions of fried vegetable, curry vegetable, sambar, rassam, pickle, chutney, curd and rice. Three years ago this used to cost Rs. 30 and now this costs Rs. 60. I think this is an indication that yes prices have gone up but they have doubled in the last 3 years but they have certainly not gone through the roof as eating in some restaurants may suggest.

Prices have gone up and there is no denying that but if you pick and choose the restaurants that you eat in you can still have a great meal without burning a hole in your pocket.

Cookbook for the novice

Cooking can be hard to learn if you do not have the right tools and guidance. Many of us miss out on learning how to cook when we are at home due to a zillion reasons that each one of us can quickly come up with from just laziness to "I will never have to cook". All of this changes when we have to travel abroad or have to live on our own and have no option but to cook. At that point of time the phone calls home and the lack of information in the cookbooks in the market to address the novice cook just don't seem to alleviate our suffering.

Many years ago my parents came out with a cookbook that addressed this need. This cookbook teaches you to make some of my favourite and simple dishes such as plain rice, tomato rasam, chocolate cake, Lemon Souffle and many many more recipes.

You can catch all the other recipes from the book The Amateur Cooks Companion on DSouza Web.

Food in Hyderabad

Its been a while since I blogged about food in Hyderabad. Well here goes...

A few year ago if one wanted sizzlers and russian salad there was a hole in the wall in Banjara hills called Flame which subsequently closed down. Then we found Indi Joe's in the City Center mall in Banjara Hills. They have excellent starters and sizzlers. I especially like the Pomfret sizzler - its light and tasty. I didn't like the mexican and the pastas much - but then that might be a personal taste.

Well we all know Paradise. The food there is cheap and good. But one day we decided to visit Persis Gold the fine dining restaurant in Paradise and even though the food was good I came out completely unsatisfied. The reason being that you are served the same fare as the takeaway but the prices are atrociously expensive. So my take is just do takeaway do not eat in the restaurant, at least not in persis gold.

Green Park has some excellent food. We usually do the ala carte`. The hot tandoori rotis with no butter or oil are just exquisite and they go well with pretty much any gravy. Stay away from the chinese and the continental - stick to Indian. What I like about Green Park is the perks you get there - the kids get balloons and colouring books to play with, you get starters on the house, mineral water is on the house, you get kashmiri tea and pan at the end of your meal - its just a nice experience on the whole.

Hyderabad house is a nice place to pick up food from. But be careful there are 4 hyderabad house kitchens which supply food to all the other centers so it is important that you get the food from a kitchen that you like. So enquire from where it is cooked, the one at SR Nagar is pretty good - not sure about the other 3. They have a grilled pomfret that is not on the menu but is exceedingly good - so ask for it. Of late the have Paneer tikka too that is very good.

Some of the other places that I have done take away from and have not been disappointed are Cafe Bahar and Bawarchi.

Places in and around SR Nagar - Good dosas and idlis at Udipi Home and Hotel Satyam. You also get good chat on Vengal Rao Nagar main road. Talking about chat another good place to have chat is at the Jubilee Hills check post. For chinese food visit Peking Palace in Ameerpet behind the HUDA Maitrivanam building - they have some good dishes - I generally stay away from the soups.

Talking about chinese food - Chinese Pavilion on road No. 1 Banjara Hills has some good food to offer. Its a small restaurant and the ambiance is very nice. For Mexican food visit Tex Mex opposite KBR Park. They have decent Mexican food.

Chutneys is an excellent place for idlis and dosas - just stick to the regular fare do not go for any of the fancy dosas like paneer dosa and stuff. Try out the steam dosa and the 4 uthapams from the fancy dosas - do not try anything else. Also do not have the regular food there not that great.
For a cheap wholesome full meal try out the messes - Harsha and Kakatiya the more famous ones in the Ameerpet area. Its simple to order - just walk in and say "meals parcel" and you are all set.

For pastries and doughnuts visit Ofen in Banjara hills - they have a nice selection but they are very pricey - so when you go there make sure that your pockets are loaded.

Yummy Continental Food in Hyderabad

Update : The last that I have heard of this place is that it has closed down. Pity, as this was one place you could expect some quality conti food at a reasonable cost.


Sizzlers, Steaks, Russian Salad... Do these dishes make your mouth water? If the answer to this question is "Yes" then I know just the place that you can have this food to your hearts content right here in Hyderabad.


On Road No. 12 Banjara Hills right next to Pizza Hut is a hole in the wall kind of a place - it has about 4 tables on the mezzanine floor and 2 tables and the kitchen on the ground floor - the sizzlers and the russian salad are really good. You would have to put up with the fumes while your food is being cooked but its worth it. There is an option to order take-away too but I am not sure what would a sizzler taste like when eaten 10 min after it has been sizzling so my advise would be to have it at the restraunt itself.
Happy Eating.

Hyderabad - The land of Biryani

Biryani - A must have for all those who visit Hyderabad. There are a lot of places that serve biryani and in all the years that I have been in Hyderabad I have never been to two places that serve the same kind of biryani. There is a biryani that is called Hyderabadi Biryani but to be frank I never really made out the difference. For all the historians that are food lovers here is one version of the Biryani Story. But then for those that want a Hyderabadi twist to the story here is another version. Well I did a search of Google and I got another story altogether. Enough about the history - let me get down to where one can find some good biryani to eat.

The best Biryani to date that I have had at a price that would hardly pinch your pocket is Cafe Bahar. Its address is - Cafe Bahar, Old MLA Qtrs Road, Hyderguda, Hyderabad. The best way to enjoy the biryani is to take the biryani home and eat. The place is not the cleanest place you would want to be eating your food and neither does it provide the ambience unless you are willing to eat with a zillion people milling about you among a cacophony of voices around. The biryani is excellent and is worth trying out.

Another good place to try out for some excellent biryani is Bawarchi. Its address is - Bawarchi, 66, Alambad Industries Area,RTC Cross Rd. This place has a multi-cuisine restaurant a roof restaurant and a restaurant to just eat as quickly as you can. Once when I visited this place a guy came in ate his biryani and did not have the money to pay and the guys in the restaurant started to abuse the poor chap and the best part was everyone around the man continued eating their biryani's as if nothing was happening around them. That’s how engrossing their biryani can be.

In the old city around the historic Charminar are quite a few places of repute. One of them is Hotel Madina and another is Hotel Parwaaz. But if you happen to go to this bustling part of town there are enough of small road side joints that offer you the best biryani around. The problem with most of these places is that they do not have a decent place to sit and have the biryani but don’t let this deter you from trying out the stuff.

In the Secundrabad area there is always Paradise. The biryani here used to be excellent but of late its kind of gone lower in my list of places that give the best biryani. Nevertheless it is worth trying out and they have different restaurants to cater to your pocket and taste from a garden to a multi-cuisine to an open kind of a shop.

For a more Andhra kind of a biryani there are a couple of places in Ameerpet that are worth mentioning and one is FishLand for is fish and prawn biryani and Anupama for its chicken boneless and fish biryani. Be warned these places have fiery hot biryani guaranteed to give you a Fiery Hyderabad Belly.

If you really don’t feel like leaving the luxury of your home then you can order for the biryani to be delivered to your doorstep. Hyderabad House delivers Biryani and other Hyderabadi delicacies to your doorstep or you can also go and pick it up at the numerous outlets that they have around the city.

For those of you that think you may have missed out Biryani during the day - well don't worry. Green Park at Begumpet provides you some of the best Hyderabadi food that there is to offer during the night. Their Midnight Buffet starts at 11:30 and goes on till the wee hours of the morning and the center of this buffet is a lovely biryani. This is an experience worth checking out.

Phew - This is like just the tip of the iceberg of places that serve good biryani. Now once you get here what kind of Biryani do you have - well that’s for another article on another day.