One of the must-try dishes we’d hoped to savour during our stay in Hyderabad was haleem, that velvety combination of cooked ground meat, cracked wheat and spices that is the very epitome of Hyderabadi luxury. Sadly, everywhere we went, we … Continue reading
A Hyderabadi colleague of my husband’s, whenever he’s trying to describe something or someone that he thinks very highly of, uses the adjective ‘pista’. “That means ‘excellent’,” he once explained to my husband. “Something that’s the best is pista.” Which … Continue reading
Hotel coffee shops, I’ve learned from experience, are often not the best places to go to if you want a taste of the local cuisine of a city. In India, especially, most coffee shops tend to serve up pretty much … Continue reading
4 Seasons hadn’t been on our list of places we wanted to eat at in Hyderabad, but we’d come to this little complex of eateries, only to find that the place we’d been looking for—Pista House, which calls itself the … Continue reading
Frankly, ‘Republic of Noodles’ sounds too kitschy a name to me to expect anything other than an Indian Chinese eatery, offering the usual suspects: the vegetable Manchurian, the Hakka noodles, the sweet and sour chicken. Stuff I wouldn’t touch with … Continue reading
Left to book a hotel for ourselves (if we’d only been visiting Hyderabad as tourists), my husband and I would probably have chosen a heritage hotel, or something possibly closer to the tourist attractions of Hyderabad. However, since this was … Continue reading
Let me begin with a disclaimer: I’ve never been to one of those classic Bombay Irani cafés. I’ve heard praises (and seen photos) from friends in Bombay, though, and they’ve invariably waxed eloquent. When I heard, therefore, that a Parsi … Continue reading
Two eateries, both with sort of simian names, opened their doors in South Delhi around the same time. One was Monkey Bar (which we’ve still not got around to visiting, even though we’ve heard good things about it). The other … Continue reading
Johnny Rockets—‘The Original Burger’—is an international diner chain that’s been around for 27 years and has over 300 outlets in the US and internationally. I was only aware, in a vague sort of way, of the chain’s name; I’d never … Continue reading
Delhi-based restaurateur AD Singh opened a Japanese restaurant called Ai in Delhi’s MGF Metropolitan Mall (in Saket) some years back. This mall happens to be not one of Delhi’s most happening, and since we visit it once in a blue … Continue reading
Dustedoff 