These days the concept of “Welcome Drink” is to mix soda with sugar and add some flavoured syrup to it. It’s almost like as if they want you to feel full before starting the main meal! And that’s why the Kokam Sharbat that was served as welcome drink in My Boli was doubly refreshing! This is a Maharashtrian cuisine based restaurant and I learnt that Kokam Sharbat and Kokam Soda are quite popular drinks in that state. If they taste like this, it is no wonder that they are so popular! Before talking about the starters, I need to first talk about their Chicken and Mutton Thali. Both from a quality and quantity perspective, these two thalis score very high marks. When they wrote “soup” as part of the Thali, I really expected some Dal soup or something like that! What we got was an actual mutton soup and it’s real been years since I’ve had soup like that! The chicken and mutton curries are also quite tasty and go very well with the rice and chapatis. I would simply go back just for these items, I want to say, but I also had another revelation in life there – that you can have poori with aamras and experience heaven! Oops, I forgot about the starters – we had a veg platter (the kothimbir wadi was the best!) and a full pompret fry. Zero complaints on these items too. I would keep going back to this place for trying out more of these dishes! Welcome to Hyderabad, My Boli!
In Hyderabad, Eat here!
Polar Bear
What a name to choose for an ice cream joint! I like creative names 😊. Their “Triple Luv” truly showers some real ice cream love on you! Infact, they have the best possible combination in this – vanilla, pista and fruit! Topped with some dry fruits and honey, you will really feel loved after having this. And then they have this vanilla ice cream with hot fudge and chocolate cake – named “My DBC”, that was also very good in taste. I also had their Alphonso Mango Falooda and liked it a lot (well it's Mango, so it can't go bad!).
Manchi Baphe
True to their name (which translates to Good Buffet), this restaurant has really wide variety of items in their buffet that so totally justifies their pricing. While the options in their starters and main course are very impressive (especially the non-veg ones 😊), I want to highlight the really great offerings of the desserts in their buffet. The buffet options in desserts are really exhaustive and include some great items such as Tres Leches too 😊. They also have multiple live counters – chat, dosa, pasta, pan, sugarcane juice etc! I’d strongly recommend that you try the dosa with any of the non-veg curries. In addition to all these multiple offerings, the ambience of this place is also quite good. For sure, we will keep going back to this place!
AnTeRa
AnTeRa stands for Andhra, Telangana and Rayalseema. However, only the telugu speaking people will understand the brilliant word play of the place 😊. And true to their name, they serve a wide variety of cuisine from all these three regions + some Chinese too! The Nalgonda Mutton Fry is one of the best mutton dishes I’ve had. The Korameenu fish fry is also very tasty (I also think this is because the fish was also fresh and frozen). Their prawns curry with Bhimavaram Chicken pulao had the taste glands asking for more! We also tried their chicken fried rice, just because it is there on the menu 😉. The place is mostly full and the noise in the place actually makes it more lively too. AnTeRa surely is a brilliant place to go for nice ambience and great food.
Third Wave Coffee
Oh what an accidental find this was! The options they have in their coffee beans, I think is the largest in the city. They’ve showed us nearly 7-8 varieies of coffee beans from which we could choose the flavour we want for the Pour Over. I chose the medium-dark roast option and simply fell in love with the coffee and the place. Their Scallion Cream Cheese Bagel is also good breakfast option, especially it goes so well with the chips they serve along with it. Double Shot Cappucino is also a very good option to sip while you are driving in the Hyderabad traffic!
Taro
Taro is one of the few Asian cuisine places that offers nice real Asian flavours in their menu! Their Tom Kha soup was really refreshing to begin with – their optimal usage of the coconut milk to get the authentic flavour is perhaps one of the best in the city. We had a platter of Chicken and Veg Dimsums – a total of 6 varieties were served and every single one of them was really good. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the names of these dimsums 😊. For main course, I did the mistake of ordering Singapore Chicken Curry. Mistake not because the taste wasn’t good, but mistake because I forgot that this curry also will be coconut milk based, so it tasted like a repetition of the soup 😊. But all this was made by their superb Pad Thai with egg. Especially, the masterly preparation of the egg was impressive 😊. For the first time, I also got to taste Mocha Ice Cream and came to know how rice paper is used in the preparation of this ice cream!
Elsewhere
Interesting name no! Their menu is also equally interesting. They serve Chicken-65 with appam (actually spread over the appam) and it is awesome to eat! Most restaurants don’t serve Lung Fung soup and so it was a good surprise to see it on the menu here – and needless to say it tasted quite good. We also had Mushroom Salt and Pepper which lived up to its name! Grilled Fish with Mustard Sauce was quite filling for the main course. The Pizza was good too but nothing to rave about it though.
Turquoise @Le Meridien
A unit of the Marriot hotels, Turquoise is the name of the restaurant at the Le Meridien hotels in Gachibowli. Their lunch buffet has a good spread of Indian and International cuisine. More than their international cuisine items, I liked the taste of their Indian spread much better. Tikkas, Pulavs and Curries were very filling to have 😊. In their dessert, they had a coconut flavoured pudding which was awesome 😊.
Winnis Cake and Café
Located on the 13th Phase road of KPHB, Winnis cakes are surely a winner 😊. Their strawberry cake and the chocolate cake were really fresh and very tasty. The students of the school where these cakes were cut were also very happy with the taste! This is a veg only place. For sure, more orders will go to this place regularly.
Oki Poki
You see the name and go a little hehe 😊. Their food is also as interesting as their name is. Wild Mushroom & Thai Herb flavoured Sushi was quite an unique dish – I’ve never had this kind of flavour and liked it a lot. To be on the safer side, I ordered Steamed Wonton Chicken dumpling too and wasn’t disappointed at all with it! Oki Poki for sure will keep getting more orders 😊.
Red Bean Café
In recent times, multiple bakeries have opened up on the KPHB 9th Phase road. Red Bean Café is one such café, but what caught my eye was the various Medovik pastries they offer. These pastries are honey based and I had a Russian Medovik for the first time in Concu. Red Bean Café serves different varieties of these medovik cakes and they don’t disappoint you much. Their sandwiches are also quite tasty but their offering is their cappuccino! I think they also do double shot by default, like how Smoky Box Organic does!
Qaffeine Qoffee
Well, the name says what you should have there. I liked their coffee – the hot double shot cappuccino and the classic cold coffee. They do serve snacks but I haven’t tried them out yet.
My Fishing Boat
The location of this eatery is very interesting. It is located under the Hitech City Metro station, just a floor above the pavement! And is also one of the few places that serve proper pan fried fish 😊 – and to top it all, they use the Black Pompret fish (also called Roopchand!) for this fry. The fish fry had the correct spice levels, was cooked perfectly and tasted perfect too! We also ordered some Chinese from here but nothing much to write about those dishes 😊.
Shoyu
My brother calls me and wonders why I haven’t ordered from Shoyu yet! Unable to bear that pressure (😝), I placed an order. And then I realised why my brother was putting so much pressure! Shoyu serves some real tasty and excellent Asian cuisine – my favorite (like many others) is their Trufle Asparagus and Avocado Sushi. I’ve probably had it some 3 times in the past one month! I liked their other Sushis and Dimsums too – Spicy Chicken Shumai, Pan Fried Chicken & Rice Paper Dumpling, and their Katsu Chicken Roll. Their packing is very neat and you get a good portion of Wasabi as a side 😊. Shoyu is quite costly though but it’s understandable why it’s so costly too!
Tewari’s
Not only is this a Veg only place, this is also a place that serves NONG – No Onion, No Garlic 😊. Almost everything that we ate here was awesome – their chats are great to begin with (especially the Dahi Puri); their poori with alu is awesome; their noodles with Manchuria is one of the best veg dishes ever – this dish has that right amount of spice that will make you go gaga over the Manchuria sauce and the noodles! This is located right at the Khairatabad junction.
The Symphony
A veg only place located in Filmnagar. It had been a while since I had tomato soup so we ordered the Roasted Tomato and Basil Soup, which was yummy! There are very few places that serve Feta Cheese with Watermelon and The Symphony is one of them. And if that item is on the menu, then it has to be ordered! I loved this dish here 😊. We also had Chinese Bhel, and the only reason I remember the dish is because of the name 😃. Sphagetti with Pesto sauce was also good (atleast I liked it!). The ambience of this place is quite good and is a nice place to go for a good veg lunch.
Satti babu Biryani
There was this period of a week or two, where when you open facebook, one of the first reels that was popping up was Sattibabu Biryani! And the short reel was indeed very appetizing to watch. Their concept is simple – very tasty bagara rice accompanied by chicken or mutton or prawns, according to your choice. And now if video is so appetizing, then why would I not order it? And then in the ordering platform, I see that the ratings are not very good. I go ahead and order it anyway, and then realise why the ratings are so low! I ordered joint-piece biryani. What they sent was a deep fried Chicken Joint piece and the bagara rice. The chicken wasn’t as tasty as it looked in the video! The rice was good, but my next order will definitely not be a joint-piece biryani. Will give this place one more try with mutton and then decide what to do!
Ohri’s Cake Nation
I occasionally order cakes from here while visiting schools and have always found their cakes to be fresh and tasty! Especially their Chocolate Truffle Cake and Black Forest Cake are very good and I’ve repeated these specific orders atleast 2-3 times. The children at the school have also given overwhelming feedback
SV Pulav and Sea Snack
I’d recommend that you directly order from Swiggy/Zomato instead of going here to pick up. This place is basically run by the same folks who run the Hibachi meat shop, in Kukatpally. Their Pulav is truly one of the best in the town – you can try either the chicken or the mixed pulav. You may complain about the quantity of chicken in the pulav but you will forget all that once you start eating the pulav! Their Fish Fry and Chicken Fry are also very good – these are deep fried dishes but retain a very good spicy taste!
Meenakshi Parcel and Catering
For simple pleasures of life, the curry points in Kukatpally are the best! Meenakshi is once such place – white rice, chicken fry, Joint Chicken Fry and Mutton Fry were all very nice. The spices weren’t overpowering and that’s what made me enjoy the meals from this place even more.
7 sisters
To do some poetic justice, 7 of us boys went to this place – you know, 7 brothers visiting 7 sisters 😝. Though this place also claims to have food from the NE states, the cuisine is majorly from various countries like Tibet, Nepal, Indonesia, Thailand and China! Tucked in a nice ambience in the HITEX road, I’d very strongly recommend this place for some awesome comfort food. To begin with, their dumplings, especially the fried ones are awesome. Both the veg and chicken dumplings were really really good. The Chilli Basil Fish, Prawns Tempura, Wok tossed Wild mushrooms, Chilly baby corn were yet another treat to the taste buds! The Tibetean Thupka bowl was devoured by everyone as if it was some competition! We also had Indonesian Fried Rice and the Pad Thai – the reaction to these both was mixed but I liked both these dishes too. Am for sure going back to this place to try many other dishes on their menu – we couldn’t get to the Korean and Singaporean ones in this visit.
SpiceBox Organics
The simple pleasures of life get rekindled here when you have their Vegan Carrot cake. First, the taste of orange zest will hit your taste buds. While you are enjoying that tinge the carrot hits you. And while you are still trying to figure why this tastes so good, the coconut flakes hit your buds! This encore experience cannot be described and can only be experienced. It being a vegan cake, it isn’t heavy on the tummy at all. I had even recommended this to my vegan friends and they were raving about it too. The coffee here also very good (I think also because of the fact that by default they do double shot, therefore making it an ideal mix of milk and coffee!). This place is newly opened in Madhapur and I would definitely recommend this place! They also sell a lot of spices and dals here.
Tashi
Tucked away in a small bylane near the Peddamma Temple in Jubilee Hills, Tashi has been an excellent find for us! It is a veg only restaurant and offers almost everything that is on the menu in Jain options too. The variety on the menu is very impressive and requires multiple visits to try out these awesome options! We had the Taco Salad, which was fresh and very tasty! Their dim sums are certainly something worthy returning to eat! The Red Thai Curry along with rice is one of the best you will find in the city, taste wise (though I would have preferred it to be a little more runny!). The Hakka noodles and Tibetan Thupka are also very good here – especially the Thupka!
10 Pounder Pizza
Oh boy, what a pizza! The crust, the cheese, the toppings – oh boy, what a pizza! I had mushrooms with Italian herbs and extra cheese as topping; pineapple, jalapeno with extra cheese as topping – oh boy, what a pizza! They also have half and half pizzas – half pizza with one set of toppings and another set in the another half. Without any hesitation whatsoever, you should literally pound your way through these pizzas! Oh boy, What a pizza!
Taaza Kitchen
The best time to eat at this place is before 8am because after that it just gets crowded! The place offers a very simple menu and the best part is that is it does not encourage any modifications (Less oil, less masala stuff!!) The Idly with green chutney is simply too good, especially for the green chutney lovers. They offer only Masala Dosa and the size is just perfect to have atleast 2 of them 😊. The Khara bath is little runny for my liking but the Kesari bath is too good here. And you must end this sumptuous breakfast with their awesome Filter Coffee.
The Joint Al Mandi
After having some awesome Mandi food in 4 seasons and Spice 6, I had experience disappointment at many places that claim to serve Mutton Mandi. The mutton pieces are either too small or the rice too heavy. So it was with a bare minimum expectations that I had ordered food from here, only to be pleasantly surprised by the quality of their offerings. The portion size is a little less compared to what 4 seasons offers, but the taste of the mutton is very good here. The meat is perfectly cooked and is quite tender. The Chicken Mandi is also quite good here, but if it’s Mandi it has to be mutton! And the Joint Al Mandi will definitely rank one of the best places offering this.
Biryani Stories
Though no stories can be told about Biryanis here 😊, the food definitely hasn’t disappointed. I got bored of the usual dum biryani so had the Raju Gari Biryani and Chicken-65 biryani. The typical Raju Gari Biryani in various places is a little wet but it was not so in this case. They also added red food colour but I still liked the taste. The Chicken 65 biryani was also good but the most surprising offer was the Gongura Mutton! They had ample amount of mutton (many places don’t do this much mutton!) with the right proportion of gongura mixed. I was ruing that I didn’t order White rice along with this! Also, there are very few places that serve authentic Godavari prawns – turns out Biryani stories is one such place 😊. The place definitely will be visited multiple times!
Arabian Food Corner
It was by chance that we could order from here (haven’t been able to re-order again because of distance!) – their grilled chicken was very very good. They had some unique spices that made this chicken taste very juicy yet not very spicy. The chicken itself was very well cooked. They had an item on the menu whose name I heard for the first time - Soft Mulawah Bread. It was a variant of Rumali Roti but the size was just humungous! And we ordered their “Single Size” and yet it was humongous! Shudder to think how will “Double Size” look like!
Unnathi Grand
I was searching for Nalli Ghosht and turns out that there is this place very close to home that has this item! The dish was sumptuous, and more importantly they served two Nallis thereby doing proper justice to the dish! Their Andhra Chicken curry is also very spicy and tastes good! Masala Kulcha with this Andhra chicken curry is a very good combination!
Ishtah
They have Fried Idly! I love Fried Idly and they have fried idly! And they make good fried idly! Infact they also make Idly 65 😊.Now that you understood that I ate fried idly here, let me also tell you that we had their thali and it was also good. The place offers a wide variety in their menu too.
Gaurang's Kitchen
This is one of those rare places where almost the entire course was disappointing – I think primarily because we didn’t know that it was a Thali only place for lunch. The Thali also didn’t offer anything unique. The spicy guava mocktail was good though! The ambience of this place is very good, but I guess unless another visit happens for dinner time, I would never know if this place is good or not!
Hashtag Cafe
The best part of the visit was that we were able to play the tumbling tower game – Jenga blocks – while we were waiting for our order 😊. The Mexican Hot wings were hot but weren’t Mexican. They tasted more like Chinese schezuan but the taste was definitely good so no complaints! We had Kung Pao Chicken Fried Rice. The taste was indeed good, but as I continued to eat I was eventually able to figure out that the salt was a little high! It’s a minor quibble because the quantity and taste were both apt. Their wall has a lot of “Marim Bula” bottles. I thought this was some sort of a liquor brand, only to figure out later that these are all just flavoured syrups! The embarrassment was real 😉 – but what else can you expect from someone who doesn’t drink!
Jaitra Food Court
This is literally tucked away deep into the lanes of Kukatpally’s Vivekananda Nagar colony. Actually this is close to the DAV public school but is still tucked away in a small lane. We went here because of some rave reviews from my cousins – unlimited breakfast for 70 rupees! And the best part came at the end, when they give you the “Ragi Java”. Words cannot begin to express the feelings we underwent while having that warm juice which soothed our digestive system! It was really the perfect ending to a perfect breakfast. Both the Ragi Idly and Plain Idly were awesome; then the masala dosa and poori was too good! Especially the awesome curry they make for the puri made it a deadly combination! Even their Pongal was also tasting very yummy! But I’d return for their Ragi Java anytime!
Jai Bhavani Food Court
On the now busy main road of KPHB Phase 13, this is an all purpose food court offering some very good street food! They open at 7 in the morning and are buzzing till probably 11 in the night! The day begins with a variety of breakfasts and a variety of chutneys (Actually, I’ve seen this only in Kukatpally area where they serve multiple chutneys including Bombay chutney). They also have curries and rice for lunch and dinner. Their Veg curries (especially Bhindi and Brinjal), Chicken Fry, Egg Burji, Egg masala, and chicken curry are all good. Their Leg piece fry isn’t that great though – most times the piece is not cooked through. And then there is also a Chinese Bandi in the same arena – thus completing the troika of Tiffins, Curries and Chinese! Fried Rice and Chilly Chicken is quite tasty here. I’ve seldom been disappointed while getting food from this place!
Medley
The last thing I would think one would love at a vegetarian only restaurant is a mocktail! Their Spicy Guava mocktail is really really good. The other dishes that we ordered were decent enough but nothing to rave about. The Pizza was good and so was the Sizzler, but like I said they were nothing to rave about.
F-House
I hear Tiramisu and start drooling. And in F-House, when they told us that their dish is called “Pull Me Tiramisu”, in addition to drooling I was also intrigued! So they bring the Tiramisu and then dramatically pull out the plastic casing and then the cream slowly drops onto the plate. And then when you dig in to the dish, you realise the taste is as good as the theater! If you are wondering why I jumped into talking about desserts directly, then it’s my fault only – because I think nothing can beat a great Tiramisu! While we are on desserts, I need to mention about the awesome Rose Tres Leches – this one had the exact proportions of rose and milk flavour that a Tres Leches commands! Our entire group was simply in love with this dessert too.
Let’s now talk about their Starters 😃 – Gun Power Prawns is real crispy yet doesn’t lose out on the prawns flavour or the gun powder flavour. Achari Fish is another tasty spicy starter. But the best one is their Galouti Mushroom! You can actually tell that the mushrooms are of very good quality just by eating this dish – some of us ordered multiple plates of this dish alone!
Yet another standout dish is their Pizza – both the Veg and Non-veg pizzas were real tasty and had the right amount of spice too. While their Kimchi fried rice was good, I’d definitely recommended their Salmon dish – yet another dish with the right proportion of an awesome sauce, vegetables and Salmon (ofcourse 😉). On the whole, I think F-house scores very strongly on the food and would visit this more. Also, did I tell you their Galouti Mushroom rocks?
EMYEE
Some creativity there with the name! I haven’t physically been to this place but ordered a couple of times and liked the food each time. Their Special Chicken Biryani is really good – basically boneless chicken with egg and biryani. Butter Nan and Lachcha Paratha with Tandoori chicken was so filling but definitely not heavy on the tummy!
Gunturolla Vanta
This is a small curries joint on the 13th phase KPHB road but what they offer is definitely not small! Their mutton curry (normal or gongura) quantity does real good justice to the price – I don’t recollect many places giving this quantity for that price. And oh, the curries are quite tasty too! Chicken fry, Chinthachiguru chicken, mutton curry, guthi vankaya curry and the tomato dal were also very tasty with white rice (ofcourse!). Real comfort food for the tummy!
Chubby Cho
Interesting name no 😉. Their menu and food is also equally interesting. We had the Tom Kha soup (and not the traditional Tom Yum soup) and it was very refreshing! Another time, we had their lemon coriander soup and it was one of the best we had – right combination of lemon and coriander made it one of the best! Their Nunuki Fried Rice was also very tasty but the only disappointment was that they didn’t actually use sticky rice for making that. The Tibetean Thupka bowl totally made up for it though. Definitely a place to repeatedly eat their multiple offerings!
Churrolto
What a find this place was! In the peak of summer, if you have their Summer salad, I am very confident that you will also want to visit their place again and again! But Salad is not the only good thing to eat here. Their Pizzas and Pastas are equally quite good and definitely much better than the Risotto. The jus they serve along with Jamacian Jerk Chicken is very unique and will leave you wanting for more. The rice noodles with fish is much better than their steamed fish with cauliflower mash. And of course, if you are in Churroltos you got to eat their Churros! The best dish amongst the Churros is the Churro Baklava – I would strongly recommend this dish! This place also has good desserts (Mango Parfait, Tiramisu and Chocolate Mouse were quite good!).
Blind Ch3mistry
The advantage of going with large groups is that you get to eat a lot of items from the menu! Their Spicy Mango Mix mocktail was superb because of using jalapenos and not actual mirchis! Many starters were ordered (Cheese Corn Balls, Chicken wings, Chicken Satay, Volcano Prawns) and not disappointed with any one of them! The veg folks had Quesidilla’s too. But to me, the best items were their Pizzas and something called a Twister pizza. They had the right proportion of cheese, vegetables and meat on the pizzas and were really yummy! I also had the Oozy Cheese and Tomato sandwich – it tasted ok and was definitely not oozy!
Ram ki Bandi
One of the legendary places to have breakfast in Hyderabad was Ram ki Bandi. They have now opened branches all over the city. You will know why the fame is well deserved the moment you finish eating one dosa! The spice mix they use (and if you add upma to it) is unique and really gives your taste buds a good experience. I expected their chutney to be a little more tastier but that is just a minor quibble! Enjoy the dosas!
Anandam
A veg only restaurant in Gachibowli, I chanced upon this when trying to order food from veg only restaurants for a dinner at home. Turns out, their food is actually very tasty – we had Paneer Butter Masala, Veg Curry and Malai Kofta for curries; Veg Biryani for, well, biryani 😃 and a combination of phulkas and rice. If you are a veg only eater, then you must definitely try for some homely food from this place.
Old Madras Baking Company
One of the rarest places where I ended up not liking anything ☹. With all the hype around this place and the unusual number of recommendations it received, I really had high high hopes. The Madras Filter Coffee was such a major disappointment. Major. The coffee wasn’t strong and definitely tasted more like instant than filter. The three cheese sandwich was so bland, so bland, that am not finding the right words to compare too. The billing was a bit chaotic too. It was then that I read some more reviews and figured out that a new management was in place recently and things were not the same after that. Some old timers were really upset too – and then everything fell in place for my experience!
The Baker’s Dozen
I got very excited with the name and also the menu on the offering. I went ahead and ordered the Chilli Cheese Sourdough bread and the Banana Walnut Cake. The bread was good but then I am so used to eating this at Café Eclat that I realized I cannot like sourdough bread from anywhere else! The Banana Walnut Cake was very good though – they claim it is 100% wheat and nothing to suspect otherwise from the taste.
Indiana Burgers
It was a mixed experience eating from Indiana Burgers. The Bhuna Chicken Diet Roll and Egg & Cheese Diet Roll were actually quite good. Diet roll = whole wheat roll and I think that’s what added to the taste. However, the burger (I ordered Los Pos Hermanos Chicken Burger) wasn’t something to rave about. I think the chicken patty wasn’t as tasty as I thought it will be. Perhaps a couple of orders more and then a better assessment can be made of the burgers!
Sree Harsha Delux Mess
After hearing so much about this place, especially from the main Ameerpet branch, it was high time that food was had from here! And it surely didn’t disappoint. Chicken Fry Piece briyani was quite tasty, but just the white rice with chicken rice was also real good! Now wonder this place is so famous for their meals and non-veg items.