Hyderbadi Food Fest at ITC

Rest : Hornbys Pavilion
Loc : ITC Grand Central, Parel
Meal : Dinner


Was honored with an invitation to dinner from the very beautiful Kulsum Begum who happens to be a master chef with the ITC chain and specializes in Hyderbadi cuisine. She is also a family friend and is running a festival till the 20th of August at the venue.

I have been fortunate enough to have dinner at her apartment many a time from simple khichadi to salans, the food has mostly been fairly incredible.

The buffet was quite heavily laden, covering Hyderbadi dishes as well as an assortment of other dishes including an assortment of salads, cheese, Sushi, dips, etc. I started with the dal tikki, curd rice, a kofta that looked like gulab jamun(a popular dessert) and a potato dish.


the food was extremely rich in taste and texture although the vegetarian selections were somewhat limited. lets face it, Hyderabadi is more about the meats and apparently there was all kinds of meat, my other dinner companions were very very happy.


There was also a yellow dal not pictured here, which had a lemon, garlic taste and was very different from your usual yellow dals. The biryani was not too bad and the black dal was allright.

There was a huge expanse of desserts of all kind, the ITC buffets dont leave you wanting for much and i have always found them impressive. Since this festival is more less like a family event for me, i have little to complaint about.

The service was very prompt and i would highly recommend the food festival if you are a carnivore. If you cant make it for this festival ensure you attend their breakfast buffet at least once, i dont think anyone in this city does it better.

Food : 8/10
Service : 8/10
Damage 1500 per person.

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An update on the Royal Hyderabadi Food Festival is coming soon.

cheers.

Bellagio

Rest : Bellagio
Loc : Opp Asiatic Library, Fort
Meal : Sunday Lunch

Bellagio is a small region near Lake Como known for its beauty and not really for its cuisine, that should have been the first red flag but being a Sunday morning the itch to try a new place got the better of us and we ended up at this relatively new eatery in the Fort area.

The place is small, with wooden panels, the tables are very close to each other and spacing is fairly limited. In a situation like this a restaurant has to either churn out some incredibly imaginative fare or conversely churn out the most pedestrian. The fist inquiry from the waiter was if we were Jains (second red flag) which we were but didnt want anything remotely Jain like and yes, it was all downhill from there.

The iced tea was pretty good but it was a shame it showed up half way through my meal

The bruschetta was just tasteless and horrible, the ricotta and spinach triangles were not triangles at all but rolls, with a tzatziki dip which really was not a tzatziki dip at all. Both utterly tasteless and boring. (How can you screw up a Bruschetta)


The salad of peppers and lettuce in some disgusting dressing. Over marinated peppers, the taste seeped into everything and the lettuce was not even fresh.

The spinach risotto came with CORN and was fairly below par, the cream overpowered the taste of everything else

The roulade in a tomato basil sauce was just like a punjabi gravy dish and if you thew paneer in there and supplied a Naan no one would miss a beat. A roulade has to be delicately set up, try Moshe or Basilico and theirs are incredibly done, tomatoish, sweet but very sharp. Nothing like that here, overdone heavy handed little dish.

Overall : Bellagio is terrible, the service is friendly but not very good. There was some sticky stuff on our table AFTER it was cleaned, i asked for a bread basket and got exactly four slices of bread measuring 1/4 of an inch....

Food wise its a massive flop, not a single dish was acceptable to anyone with a discerning palate,. Even people who like Indianized version of international dishes will not enjoy the food here because there is no real effort being put into it. New Yorkers, Cream Centre and Relish do a far superior job of localizing.

I for one, dont think i could ever come back in this lifetime.

Food : 3/10
Service : 6/10
Damage : 1000

Im not even telling you where this monstrosity is.