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 13^th 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 9^th 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!