Ohri's Jiva Restaurant, Somajiguda, Hyderabad

Just like Rajdhani and Taj Tristar, this Hyderabad restaurant also provides a sumptuous buffet lunch that has everything from starters to desserts – and loads of it. The best part about eating here is that the food is sumptuous, the service is quick, the sweets are plentiful and most importantly, there are no limits to how much you eat. Ohri’s Jiva is located near the Somajiguda flyover. It is on the right side of the Rajbhavan road after you take a left from under the Somajiguda flyover.

Ohri’s is one of the biggest chain of restaurants in Hyderabad. They have a wonderful Ohri’s restaurant at Banjara Hills which specializes in providing some of the best Punjabi food I have eaten in Hyderabad. But Jiva’s Kitchen, as the Somajiguda outlet is called, is clearly the more famous of its restaurants. Ohri’s Jiva kitchen is famous for its unlimited buffet lunch and I did feel that it really was a wonderful experience eating there.

Jiva’s kitchen has a small counter in the front where they serve fast food and also different variety of dishes and plates that need to be ordered. That area has space enough of 20-30 people. In this space, you can have your fill of various combos like Chhole Puri, Pastas, Biryani and other fast food items. In the back, though there is a huge space where they serve buffet and you can load yourselves up on all the sinful delicacies on offer there.

The starter is served with the soup and then there will be a variety of rotis to choose from. They serve the phulka roti – which I felt was the best part about the restaurant. Serving the phulka is tough because making them is tough. For one, they are small sized, next they need to be turned over and over again – unlike the tandoori roti or kulcha. They take a fair bit of time and you need to cook a lot of these in order to be able to serve them to your customers continuously. At Ohri’s they had a guy who was constantly engaged with only the phulka rotis. Other than phulka, there are the usual butter roti, puris etc available.

The next course was the longest for me. The sweets were Rasgullas, Rasamalai, Gulab Jamuns, Cake, ice cream with toppings and some fruits. I experimented with having a Gulab Jamun topped over an ice cream and it tasted delicious. Recommended recipe from Chef Loony.

Finally, there was the trademark Biryani and a few other types of rice, a few dals too. There were atleast 3-4 different subzis. Different variety of pickles, Raita, Dahi, salads etc. was all available. All in all, Jiva had a huge variety of food available and I made the most of it all.

The food was delicious, not very high in oil, well cooked and with enough sweets for me to call it a sure fire paisa vasool.

Ratings:
Ambience : 8/10
Food : 8/10
Price : 8/10
Quantity : 10/10 - Cant complain here ..... right ;-)

Tandoor Restaurant, Nr. Lifestyle Mall, Begumpet

Starter : Location
Just beside Lifestyle building, in Begumpet, Hyderabad, is this superfine restaurant, specializing, as the name suggests in providing sumptuous Punjabi food. Because of the space crunch and probably also because of the exorbitant property prices in this part of the city, the Tandoor restaurant is located such that it is not conspicuous and you will miss it unless you are looking specifically for it. This restaurant is one of the best options to eat at in Begumpet, if you want to go to an exclusive Punjabi food restaurant in Hyderabad.

First Course : Ambience
Tandoor is very well decorated with superb interiors in the same class as some of the best Punjabi food restaurants in Hyderabad. It has a big chandelier right in the middle of the hall. There is a big glass opening at one side, from where we can see the chefs cooking roti. The cutlery was silver coated and the plates were good, though a little worn out. The whole restaurant didn’t have enough windows and you might have the same feel as you will when entering into a darkly lit pub. In one part of the restaurant, there is space for the Thali, from where the Thali menu will be served.

Main Course : Food
Tandoor serves alcohol, so before you jump for the food, you can surely savor some wine. You will definitely need some beer to digest the high prices of the food served in the menu. A meal for two will easily cost you atleast 4-500 bucks without the drinks of course. The menu is uninspiring and serves the usual Punjabi fare. We started with the Shorba, which was not very good. Then we had the usual Paneer Tikka which was quite tasty. We followed it up with the Dal Makhani and Peas Pulav combo, which was very well prepared. It was the best Dal Makhani I have had in Hyderabad.

Dessert
The Bill. :-)

The crowd at this restaurant can be very big on weekends and so be sure to book a place in advance if you want to visit on weekends. Tandoor is just another branch of the restaurant with the same name located in Bangalore.

Ratings:
Ambience : 8/10
Food : 8/10
Price : 7/10
Quantity : 7/10

Angeethi Restaurant, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad

The name Angeethi means an open stove that burns charcoal to keep rooms warm in winters. Angeethi restaurant, Hyderabad is located at the Center Point building on Banjara Hills, Road No 1. A hotel of the BJN group, it is considered to be one of the best places in Hyderabad to have good North Indian food at. In fact the whole top floor of this building has BJN group restaurants and I will be reviewing the rest of the restaurants soon enough.

The theme and the décor of Angeethi at Hyderabad is atypically different from that of normal restaurants and hotels. Angeethi is one of the few concept restaurants in Hyderabad and according to my knowledge it is one of the best. The interior of the restaurant has been made to look like a dhaba with a bar called “Sharab Theka” and a pan shop called as the “Soorma Bhopali Pan Shop”. They have posters of Amitabh and Dharmendra strewn across the walls. Even the menu is made to look like a newspaper.

The excessive wait to get inside this restaurant is always a big problem for people who love Angeethi’s food, but the rewards of the wait are excellent too. There are a lot of must haves when you visit this restaurant and they are cheese kurkuree, barra kebab, sabootha choosa, makkai di roti, corn methi malai, murgh rada masala, sarson da saag, tawa prawns, dal maska. The desserts consisting of gulab jamun, faluda, kulfi with pista and crushed nuts is also sumptuous.

The only drawback with eating out at Angeethi restaurant in Hyderabad is obviously the long wait and the high prices. If you want to visit on weekends then you need to spend the entire evening waiting for your turn to come. The fluids at this hotel ate just too exorbitantly priced. A meal for two will cost you upwards of 500 bucks. But the ambience and the experience do make up for it all. Also, the menu is such that you will have to consult the staff in order to understand everything well and nicely.

Ratings
Ambience : 8/10 (On popular demand)
Food : 8/10
Price : 6/10
Quantity : 7/10

Loony Tip
The buffet could be a good deal for people who want to savor good Punjabi food, eat to their fill and not feel too bad about it too. It costs 200 bucks and can be had in the afternoons from Monday to Saturday.

Bowl O' China Restaurant

The Bowl O China restaurant chain was started by the Hyderabad House group. It has its outlets in Sanjeev Reddy Nagar, Kharkhana and Begumpet. The ambience of the Bowl O China restaurant, at its SR Nagar outlet is very good. The restaurant has used dark red and black colors for walls and furniture. The lamps that they have hung from the ceiling are very beautiful too.

One of the favourite places to dine at for all Satyamites, Bowl O China, provided good quality Chinese food at a very inexpensive price. I have eaten just about every other vegetarian dish available at this restaurant. The restaurant, according to me serves the best Chinese food or the Indianised Chinese food I have eaten. The food is not too spicy like what is found on the road side Chinese Stalls, yet is really tasty and well made.

The menu is eclectic with a lot of items so unique that they are not found in any other Chinese restaurant. The momos are delicious and are called as dim sum in this restaurant. There are items such as the crispy chicken gyoza, black bean prawns etc which may not be there in most of the general Chinese restaurants in Hyderabad. Last time we went, we ordered the Tom Yum soup, hakka noodles, burnt garlic fried rice along with chilly honey chicken. All these dishes were good especially the noodles which I ate and which had a nice flavor of herbs. For the Non Vegetarians, Bowl O China serves Halal meat only. The service is prompt and usually doesn't make you wait a lot. But the restaurant, because of its popularity is usually full, especially so on weekends and that might translate into some waiting time.

Since, we Satyamites used to live at Sindhi colony, the Bowl O China was our favorite Chinese food restaurant in Hyderabad. Also the Satyam discount - 10% off on the bill, helped matters a lot too.

Located at
Sanjeev Reddy Nagar
Kharkhana
Ameerpet

We used to visit the restaurant from Sindhi colony. It is near the Mayfair building of Satyam, which is its registered office. If you start from Paradise and move towards Mayfair, you have to go on till you reach the next circle. Bowl O China is located at that circle.

Restaurant Report
Ambience : 8/10
Food: 8/10
Price: 8/10
Quantity: 8/10

What it serves best?
Dim Sum - the Veg as well as the Chicken variety is delicious here.