Mak-o-brew!

What a find this place has really been! It’s a vegetarian only place; has very good ambience and has some exceptional coffee options! You must try some of the options such as Turk Havesi (Coffee with cardamom), Qahwa, Café de Olla (especially for that tinge of pepper!), Vienna Coffee (for the whipped cream combo!) and ofcourse the Cappucino 😊. Each of these options will literally leave a mark on your taste buds. You must have the Tomato Basil Avacado Open Sandwich while you are here. You must have it. They have Brussel Sprouts too – but not always. You must try them when they have it. The various Pastas and Noodles are also quite good here, but I frequent this place just for the coffee!

Turqoise at Le Meridien

Very few people may get this, but our group works on something called XO in our day-to-day work at office. Imagine our delight when we saw a dish called Fish in XO sauce at Le Meridien’s widespread buffet 😊. The dessert offerings, especially the different Gatuex were quite good at this place. While the European main course was good, it was the chat items in the Indian cuisine that stood out.

Renao Café & Bistro

 This place is right next to Palamuru Grill and despite seeing that on every visit to Palamuru Grill, it took many years to visit this place! Should have visited this place much earlier. Both the food and the ambience of this place are very good. We were a group of 4 and we ended up playing Scrabble while enjoying their various food offerings. They have a pizza called Seven Heaven – seven different types of cheese on the pizza. For a cheese lover like me, this is truly heaven indeed! The pizza tasted awesome as expected because all cheeses used were authentic. The Som Tom Salad is not a dish that many places prepare in Hyderabad. This salad was a good dish here. The Laksa soup was also nice with both the coconut flavour and spices tickling your taste buds! Both the Gyoza and steamed dimsums, veg and non-veg, were very nice. The Water chestnuts in Hunan sauce could have tasted better though. And not to forget, their French Fries tasted quite good too! Overall, it was a great experience eating and playing at Renao!

Nosh Bistro

They have an dish that is interestingly named Pasta in Pasta. Very curious to taste it, I ordered it home – literally expecting pasta in pasta :D. Turns out it is basically three different types of pasta mixed into one awesome tasting dish! I would certainly recommend this for those who like eating pasta. Their Veg Club Sandwich is also quite tasty and would definitely recommend for a repeat order!

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?

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!).

Autumn Leaf

A small batch of us went to this place for lunch, and were bowled over by the quality of food. Actually, the ambiance also is quite good, because a villa has been converted into a Café and a Studio! We will of course focus only on the Café here. This place basically serves European cuisine. Because we went in a group, we could order a lot of items! For soups, we ordered the Hungarian Mushroom Soup, Pea and Brocolli Soup, and the Shrimp Bisque. I personally like the Shrimp Bisque a lot, but the vegetarians in our group were drooling over the other two soups!

For starters, we got the Mezze platter (basically I will always order this wherever it is available!). As usual, this was quite good! We ordered Devilled eggs, but didn’t like it very much. The Fish cakes tasted awesome, but smelled ☹. The Chicken Souvlaki was good, as were the Brushcettas! There was a dish named Autumn bomb 😊 – but we didn’t venture into trying it!

I had the Basa grilled fish for main course, which was quite good, and also didn’t smell like the fish cakes did! Other dishes included the Eggplant Parmigiano, Vegan Burger, Shepard’s Pie, and Veg Casserole! Overall, this place serves really good European Cuisine.

Frio Bistro

This must rank as one of the best European places in Hyderabad (that also serves Gachibowli Fried Chicken 😝). Both their Minestrone soup and Mushroom soup are very good. The Prawn and Fish paella is my favorite dish here. You can have this along with the Artichoke and Baby Corn A la plancha. Artichoke is generally not served at many places so it was a pleasure to see this here! We had also tried sandwiches, risottos and pasta – all of them were quite good and nothing to complain about!

Cafe Eclat

One fine morning, friends in a whatsapp group were talking about Bagels. And then I got into the desperate mood to eat a Bagel. And the only place that came to my mind was Café Eclat! Their bagels – plain sesame, pizza, sea salt flakes bagel – are as good as we get in the Western countries too. Not just this, am also a fan of their Sourdough Bread too! Infact, the Cheese Jalapeno Sourdough bread is even better than their already awesome Sourdough Bread. Infact, the Seedy bread is even better than their already awesome Sourdough breads! 

Also had their Four Cheese Pizza and I would highly recommend this too. I had their Tiramisu too, but didn’t like it as much. This place has good sandwiches and burgers too, and is worth a visit. 

Bombay Duck

The name sounds different, but there’s nothing Bombay about it J. This has two sections – French and Italian on the ground floor; Continental (Indian and Thai) on the first floor. We settled in the ground floor J - too lazy to walk up you see! Though we were told the menu was French and Italian, it had the utterly delicious middle eastern BabaGanoush J. Ordered it without any hesitation – it comes along with nice soft Pita bread. For main course, we had their speciality chicken and fish dishes. The fish was deep fried (which we didn’t know – just assumed it would be grilled), so didn’t enjoy it much. The chicken was quite good though – tasty and filling. I forgot my debit card here – the manager kept it safe till I went back the next day. 

Cinnamon Fusion

I always wonder why this place is never full – given the nice quality of food they serve. Perhaps the costing? Or perhaps the choice of cuisine?

Cinnamon Fusion has a limited buffet option and an ala carte menu, that does not include many options of typical Hyderabadi food. Their grilled fish items in the main course are very nice. We’ve also had pizzas, salads as part of their buffet and liked them too. It’s been a while but their chicken starters were also quite good… though I vaguely recall their mutton was not quite nice the day we went. Overall, a nice place for fine dining, and fine food too J. 

Update: Unfortunately, the place is now closed! 

CIBO House

Looks like this has been recently opened. Was tempted by their poster, and took along two colleagues! They have a European buffet – lasagna, sphagetti, risotto etc are on the buffet J. Starters are served onto the table, and were simply delicious. Both the veg and non-veg starters were extremely good – the fish, chicken, prawns, mushrooms, cheese bites – just couldn’t have enough of them J. The main course was also good – if you like European food, then this place serves a delectable variety of the same. Plus it is moderately priced too. 

Cafe Rsitoretto

There is this mini food court opposite Cyber Gateway – Café Ristorette is tucked between Venky’s and Subway in this! The time taken for service is a big negative here, but the food is awesome! This place serves European cuisine and is worth visiting merely for the taste, and if you have time to kill (given the pace at which they serve). I had Sea food Risotto and Mixed Paella during two different visits and they were very good. Friends had sandwiches (chicken and veg) and were not disappointed either. The presentation of the food is also quite good – but like I said earlier, service time is very very slow! 

Price: ~Rs. 800 for two

Location: Hitech City, opposite Cyber Gateway

Sweet Nirvana

Ready to put a BIGGG hole in your wallet? Rather in your friend's wallet ;-) ? Then Sweet Nirvana is the place you would want to go! The food is different and good, undoubtedly. But the pricing is what will stop me from going back there. Just for two of us it cost 1200 rupees. And we had 1/2 soup, one starter, one main course and some fish fry. We had chicken pasta with red and white sauce, and that dish was very good. Even the chicken soup was very good. I don't recollect the starter we had but that was also good! Fish fry was ok, because it didn't have any spices in it. This place is apparently famous for desserts, but we didn't have place in our stomach to accomodate further!

Location: State Art Gallery, Madhapur

Cuisine: European

Cost: Rs.1000 - 1200/- for two people!