Hazzel Ice Cream - Gachibowli

12-10-2013

The ambiance is all blue blue and pretty unique and the service was swift and good with the guy suggesting us what we could have. A thumbs up for that.

Chocolate praline 
It was chocolate ice cream with brownie and nutella. I could not taste the nutella and neither could I taste the brownie, though it was visible everywhere but it just didn't taste as I expected. This ice cream can be missed and for Cream Stone fanatics this chocolate based treat is not really worth it.

Fruit indulgence
This ice cream was something I thought could be on par with Fruit Exotica in Cream Stone. The menu had kiwi, lichee And apple.
I was skeptical with Apple as an ingredient , apple in fruit custard is ok, but ice cream? , nevertheless I went ahead.
The ice cream did consist of kiwi but lost somewhere in the mixture and a whole lichee fruit de-seeded on the top as dressing. The ice cream was of a strawberry base. There was hardly any kiwi in there and with a single lichee fruit, the ice cream was complete. The finely chopped Apple was ubiquitous and made it look like I was having strawberry ice cream and apple, which made it a bad combination. Not recommended. None of my companions had it and I ended up finishing it leaving behind a lot of apple pieces. DO NOT GO by the image on the menu.

White chocolate fantasy 
The best of all the ice creams, I spotted it on the display board and not in the menu card. Ice cream with white chocolate base, butterscotch crunch and white chocolate chips. The ice cream was served and the entire taste was due to the butterscotch crunch and caramel. One hell of an ice cream. It was something unique and a lot better than I expected it to be. Highly recommended.

Service-5
Taste-2
Ambiance-4

Testa Rossa - Tivoli

12-10-2013

Saturday night dinner at Testa Rossa and what an experience it was. We entered the closed room section and the ambiance was just amazing with bulbs lit in a cage and the way the tree was used to make the interiors look better without having it chopped was sweet and considerate.
The Food.
I ordered a Irish cold coffee, which tasted good just like Bru-lite cold coffee that is sold commercially in stores, so the coffee failed to provide something unique or different. It was a regular cold coffee with milk powder, that is it.

Then came Cheese garlic bread, I was served with 4 pieces of bread as long as my palm with cheese and oregano was sprinkled on it with tomato sause (tomato sause ?). There was no taste of garlic in the bread but cheese was good and fresh. Also, the bread was not too oily on the palate.
Now it was time for some Penni Arabiata Pasta (with white sauce). The sauce tasted good and was not too thick with prominent taste of cheese which was evenly balanced (too much cheese is not good and no cheese makes it a bad pasta, in my opinion). It contained ample amounts of green capsicum but the chicken pieces were finely chopped and were not in excess but just there.
Finally it was time for Paprika Chicken, it was the best amongst all the dishes. Looked like it had a tandoori chicken based marinate (hung curd if i am not mistaken) and the chicken pieces were cut in nice shape and the masala was all over the chicken was in excess (like a chocolate topping on an ice cream). It lived up to its name of spicy and it did tingle my buds. The chicken seemed like it was shallow fried with a lot of oil which was visible on the plate and the chicken was nice and soft and not at all chewy. The plating of the dish was not really good and it looked mediocre but tasted good. I recommend it if one is looking for something spicy.

7-12-13
This had to be here.

Ordered Mocha Frappe or Chocolate shake(Not sure if they they same or different)
Now i told the waiter to get the best chocolate drink they could make and he got this. If one has ever tried Danone's chocolate tetra pack, this was almost the same. The drink was thick very very thick and had liquid chocolate at the bottom of the glass. This was better than any other drinks in the coffee shops around the city.
I ordered one more of this.


Ambiance is the best
Food-4
Service-4.5

(I found the washroom unique with an olden wall look and modern touch to it)

Khan Saab

A nice family dinner at Khaan Saab. The interiors are kind of simple. The ambiance on Sunday(8-12-13) night was kind off disappointing as It was a gazals night and the volume was so over the top that we could not hear the person across the table speaking.
Our order

Toonde Kabeb
Mutton keema so fine it was almost like a paste with the taste of chilli which was finely chopped. It was tava fried and so finely that the oil used got absorbed into the kabeb giving it a nice rich taste. Highly recommended.

Murg Dakhani
I guess this was the chicken wings region that connects the breast region with a single bone. It was cooked in a tandoor And had a dressing of mint and coriander paste. The taste was amazing and the charring of the chicken made it even better.
I hoped that the chef had charred it a little more. For me, the charred regions made the dish a royal one.

Chicken Kandhaar
This was a main course, the masala consisted of chopped onions and tomato and I could taste onions when ever I took a bite. The dish contained of shredded chicken and I felt the quantity of chicken was kind of on the lower side. But the taste was again amazing.

Lagan ka Chicken
This was full of cream and consisted of 6 tikka pieces and coriander. I guess the chef used kaju paste to make the gravy. The dish was bland and the only thing that stood out was the richness of the dish.
Can give it a skip.

Tandoori Roti
The roti seemed Like it was re-heated and was not hot when served. It was a little dry. My mother didn't like the roti And chose to eat only half of the whole.

I loved the place and the taste was royal but then I felt the quantity was kind of disappointing.

I rate it 4.

When the starters were served it took a while for the salad to come and when it did arrive our starters were over by then.

But the second time i asked for a plate of salad it was promptly served. So a mistake once committed was not repeated.

If not for the quantity everything else is perfect including the service with a few hiccups here and there.

CCD Lounge

6-12-2013

Lounge at Ashoka Bhopal Chambers, SP Road.

It was dinner time and we decide to try out lounge and what it had to offer.

We first ordered KHAO SUI some burmese dish.
It consisted of nice soft noodles and a lot of vegetables(Capsicum, Onion and Broccoli), two pieces of Chicken pakoda. All this was topped with a nice creamy sauce which consisted of maggi masala. The noodles were perfectly cooked and the pakoda was nice on the outside, crisp and tender on the inside. This dish was not something Extraordinary.

Chicken Platter.
This is the dish you might want to avoid consisted of 3 chicken wings. The flesh on the wings was not at all there showing that the chicken they use is lean. The next had two pakodas which again were crisp on the out and tender inside. The third on the plate were 4 momos they were kind of nice but too oily and the filling i thought was not too much. The best one was Garlic bread. It was crisp and had nice garlic sprinkled on top.
AVOID

Indian Rice bowl.
Consisted of 3 chicken pieces with tandoori masala and the same gravy that the khao suey had. IT consisted of basmati rice and in large quantities but the gravy didnt seem enough for the rice. Should be tried.

Smoked Chicken Sub
This one can never be like the the ones in Subway. The bread was cut into half and small pieces of chicken along with capsicum, Onion and some herbs sauted together and placed on the bread then a layer of mayo was added and served. It can be avoided as the taste for someone who have had subs at subway will not be great. In addition to the sub were nachos with a tomato, capsicum, garlic, pepper chutney.

Roasted Chicken Pizza
This pizza was a 7 inch one cut into four slices and served. The crust was very thin and the chicken pieces were scanty, The vegetables were not really there and the cheese also seemed kind off weird. The sauces on the base made the cheese to slip off the base and the oil was like it was a part of the dressing. Tasted mediocre
AVOID

Choco Frappe
Nothing great. The drink was not made properly as he was the only waiter and forgot to add sugar. Not an issue.
This is something I can make better at home and going to a coffee shop for such a drink is not worth it.

Kaapi Nirvana
This is the best drink on the entire menu and i heard it won the best drink of the year award.
it comes with cold coffee with a tinge of coconut and no sugar. To supplement sugar cream is added on top and on top its dressed with chocolate vermicelli . Generally people eat up the cream and find the coffee to be very sour and reject the drink but that's not how it should be tasted.
Take a spoon taste some cream and coffee till the cream is at glass level and then mix it up such that the cream acts as a sweetner and then drink the coffee.
Not to be missed

Artic Sun

What a treat. Chocolate sauce at the bottom and two scoops of vanilla in a class served with 2 shots of espresso in a minature kettle like structure. We are supposed to pour the espresso as we like and then drink it after the ice cream melts. Wow it was such a wonderfully fresh drink.

Choco Decks
The best dessert. Four layers of brownie, chocolate ice cream and chocolate sauce and i believe they add some strawberry flavour. The brownie should be heated and if its not return it coz that will ruin the taste.


Ambiance - 5 (all CCD lounges have the same feel to them )
Taste
Food - 3.5 (The dishes they offer are mediocre to good and the quantity is a little less when it comes to chicken items, not a place to be eating at )
Coffee and other Drinks - 4.5 (best place to be at for some nice coffee, they good at making coffee and should look at their food)
Service - 3.5 ( its kind of slow takes a minimum of 15 minutes before the dish is served, be it coffee also)

The items listed above are not on the menu updated by Zomato. All the CCD lounges have a different menu.

4 Seasons-Inorbit Mall food court.

7-12-2013
Biryani at 4 Seasons Inorbit Mall food court.

This is what I call the chamach choori(knife and fork) Biryani with saffron and subtle spices. The only thing I could find in it was daalchinI and a curd based marinate in the mAsala and a lot of chicken, 3 good pieces.
Having ordered it here, I payed 200. This when compared to any other normal place we would get a biryani for a good 4 people in that price. But this is not worth it and only if you have no option then it's the best bet amongst all the other options where the Biryani was served in 5 minutes.
I call this chamach choori because of tender chicken could be cut with a plastic fork while the breast region of the Chicken was not chewy at all.
The gravy(saalan) was kind of acerbic and that hints at spoilage, careful before eating.

Rating 3.5
I liked the Biryani and the food was delivered in 5 minutes but the quantity is not enough for a hungry person. It filled my stomach but i didn't leave feeling heavy. The ambiance cannot be considered as it is a food court, what can one expect? Also, keeping in mind the rent they pay and the competition around. I feel the prices are competitive and thus the rating.

Mayabaazar

25-9-2012

A lovely place to visit for classic ambiance and the food being reasonable on the pocket it makes a good visit when on a tight budget, if you can overlook a few negatives.
Home delivery experience:
I had ordered Paneer Butter Masala, the masala was good and savory but the Paneer was nothing less than a rubber, very bad at that.

Then it was the turn of Pepper Chicken, the chicken is deep fried with fine black pepper powder in it as the main flavor. Mayabaazar's pepper chicken was pretty unique at that, the chicken was coated with cornflour (I guess egg too, not a good cook so cant really tell) to make it look big and coarse pepper embedded in the coating with chopped green chilly which made the taste too peppery(that's my term for its taste). Not recommended.

Then came the Kadai Chicken, it will remind you of your home cooked food, not much masalas, onions seemed more like a garnish and a very very simple dish. Its not a dish i would want to eat at a restaurant. This could be a plus for some but not me.
Dine-in experience(a month ago):
The Chefs Special Chicken is really very good but the quantity is disappointing, with a lot of vegetables ranging from a carrot to a cauliflower to a cabbage but the chicken looked like a minority there.

The Butter Chicken is mild and does not contain a lot of masalas that go into its making and is a very simple, home style dish and the quantity of the gravy is good and is pretty smooth with the richness of butter, but the chicken is just not there, for that price I deserve a little more.

Food - 2.5(too simple)
Ambiance - 4.5(loved the place)
Service(dine-in) - 2.5(you have to wait a while to see the food on your plate)
Home Delivery - 4 (delivered in 15 minutes)

Metro Foods

30-11-2013

Coating only, no chicken. Looked like a Manchuria, had the tadka of a Manchuria but was named 65. I placed an order because of the review and it fooled me. The taste is below par and is not all that worth it.

Chicken noodles.
Lots of pepper, oil and capsicum. It gave an impression of a dish made by a novice. The noodles were under cooked and the chicken, felt like I was having just Maida(refined flour).
Why don't they name it Maida balls with noodle.

Sechwan Veg
Tadka of curry leaves and a lot of aam chur(don't know the English translation of this). I thought it was citrus acid but I was correct. So aam chur it is.
Come on. The dish can be re named.
Vegetable manchuria consisted nothing but cabbage.

Rating is 2.
Food is pathetic, over priced and not worth a single rupee. The noodles were bad and the veg starter was too Khatta(Citrusy).
I am writing this review so that, my fellow foodies are not be fooled into thinking its good or even worth trying.