Ci Gusta - gelato paradise

Having tasted the gelatos and froyos at Ci Gusta once, I decided to have a lunch there a few weeks back. and end up the meal with gelatos. I probably was setting a higher expectation, because the meal didn't turn out to be upto mark. Being a weekday, time constraint was on my mind. A friend accompanied and we placed our order almost as soon as we were seated. Since sizzlers had been introduced, I opted for a chicken shashlik sizzler and my friend asked for a chicken strogranoff. Apart from this we also ordered chicken wings as starters.

The chicken wings were the first to arrive and I was impressed by the size of the wings. 4 pieces on the plate and they were decently sized for 2 persons. The wings were crispy on the outside and succulent inside. The accompanying barbecue sauce added the right amount of tang to the overall taste. But the amount of sauce made it look more like a garnish than accompaniment.

When the chicken sizzler arrived, it left me flabbergasted. The main dish on the hotplate looked more like the steamed rice and not the chicken shashlik(which was again drowned in a sauce), topped with a handful of fries which were chewy. The ideal arrangement ought to have tactfully displayed chicken shashlik as the main dish. The whole arrangement looked pretty much basic and even lacked blanched/tossed veggies. There were about 5-6 pieces of chicken hidden beneath the sauce, each about an inch in size and no more. This was one of the most dissapointing sizzlers that I have had in my life. The taste was quite ordinary and it denied me the pleasure of enjoying a well prepared and well presented sizzler. Needless to say, I gave my feedback to the store owner. The owner reccomended I try the sizzler with brown sauce on my next visit and assured me that it complemented the chicken shashlik well.

My friend had ordered chicken stroganoff which he said was again an average dish. I did bite into a piece from his plate and I felt it was a bit rubbery with the sauce being a bit bland for the dish. Again, there was a lot of sauce in there. I had never seen a stroganoff served with so much of sauce. Feel there is a little room for improvement here.

In general, I probably would stick to pizzas and pastas the next time I visit them for a lunch, but I will definitely try sashlik sizzler in brown sauce once. Though I haven't tried them myself, but I have got good feedback about their pizzas and pastas.

To end our meal, I chose to have a regular serving of coffee gelato while my friend went off for a more ambitious combination of froyos laden with toppings. The gelatos are good indeed and if I can't drive the distance to go to Eskimos(Gandipet road, outskirts of Hyderabad) for gelatos, then Ci Gusta is where I will head to. In fact, I must say both are head-on with each other in the gelatos sections, but Ci Gusta has the advantage of froyos and the biggest advantage of being in the city. Froyos here are equally noteworthy. In short, if you are only looking forward to a place to satiate your gelato cravings then Ci Gusta(Madhapur) is the place to go to.

Ambiance - 3.5/5

Food - 3/5

Service - 3.5/5

VFM - 3/5(4/5 for gelatos)

Wow Factor - the wide range of gelatos...and yes they have free wi-fi too!

Thumbs down - only select dishes on the menu are upto expectations.

Pumpkin fritters - fret not, they are tawa fried!

Pumpkin is one vegetable which always confuses me with the question of where to use it. In my homeland, we generally use it in Dalma(a very healthy preparation of veggies boiled along with daal). But then the sweetness of pumpkin is something I cannot get along with and so for me the Dalma is made sans pumpkin. Though these days I cannot fret - L liberally uses carrots in dalma instead, says A needs them for overall growth and development.

Yesterday when I got a piece of pumpkin back home, my only thought was to prepare it the tawa fry way. We do that often as they go well with rice and dal. More importantly, I like tawa fry! Here is my recipe for a quick tawa fry that suits most veggies. I used pumpkin and potatoes today, but I generally do this with aubergines, pointed gourd and ridge gourd as well.

Ingredients:
250 gms pumpkin(or potatoes/aubergines/ridge gourd/pointed gourds)
Salt to taste
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
1 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
Chilly powder to taste
11/2 tbsp cornflour
oil

Method:
Cut the pumpkin into 1/4" thick rectangles/squares. The other vegetables can be cut into circles. Mix all the ingredients listed above with water, just enough to make a slightly watery dip.The masala will coat the veggie in patches and not completely. Heat oil on a tawa just enough to coat it and place the veggies dipped in the mix when the tawa is hot. Cook on high flame for about a minute on each side to get a sear on them, then reduce the heat to low and cook until the veggies are done. Do not cover the tawa as it would make the veggies soggy.

Since the mix is slightly watery, the veggies have patches of crispness instead of being fried like a pakoda. Serve hot either with rice and dal or use as a filling in a roll or sandwich between 2 slices of bread(the potato slices taste good in this combination).

Eat India Company - the newest North Indian fine dining on the block

I had been longing to visit Eat India Company(EIC) only because I had heard a lot about their non-vegetarian delicacies. But L said " its an auspicious day today, we will have vegetarian" and vegetarian it had to be. Generally, I am not too keen on having a feast of vegetarian dishes at a place which serves non-veg as well. Nevertheless, we took a chance and decided to play along with our plan for lunch at EIC.

The place is quite spacious and tables have been laid out for every sort of group combinations. With a full glass facade, you could opt to sit next to it and enjoy a view of the ever-busy Rd 36, Jubilee Hills(though I must say it ain't a pleasant view always). The laid back dining theme really impressed me as I sat down facing the facade while L and A settled down on the sofa. A cloudy, rainy day has a charm of its own and I thought this was the perfect way to enjoy the rain while having a lazy lunch.

It hadn't been even 2 minutes since we settled down and A had been handed over a smiley mug with fruit juice in it. So much for being a toddler! And yes, the juice was at room temperature, exactly how we would have wanted A to have it - so thoughtful of them! And soon after, we were served with a complimentary jal-jeera. It was slightly chilled and tasted good and subtly sweet.

I felt an urge to order a cock-tail and I really couldn't think of anything other than pina colada. What I got wasn't exactly the original pina colada. A look at the orange wedge and a couple of sips told me that they had used orange to bring out the citric flavor (probably out of stock with pineapple or very little of it, I presumed). The flavor did seem to be in harmony with other ingredients and so I was content with that.

One thing which I found out gradually - they did have a lot of style in the presentation of dishes and it truly made our wait for everything we ordered quite interesting(more about it later!). We ordered a Mint Makai ka shorba soup and they served it in a mini tempering wok. The shorba was something which I found out to be about average. It tasted a bit bland to me and in my opinion I wasn't quite impressed with the toned down mint flavor.

While we were at the soup, the starters arrived. Makai Malai Seekh and Dudhiya Paneer Tikka. I had requested our whole lunch to be completely devoid of spice or to the lowest extent possible and was quite impressed that the staff really took care of it each time they served a dish. All this so that A could eat her lunch without fretting much about spicy food. 

The makai malai seekh was a wee bit spicy though, but we didn't mind. It was absolutely delicious with a very slight hint of tanginess. Soft enough to melt in the mouth and yet stiff enough to hold it shape while being fiddled on the plate. The dudhiya paneer tikka was the star of the show. It really was a bold statement of how paneer tikka can taste delicious sans the spiciness, the highly pitched masalas and other mojo. I would really recommend this dish to anyone who feels core ingredients like paneer would not taste good when not spiced properly. The portion sizes for both the starters were decent enough.

Like I mentioned earlier, we eagerly waited for each dish to unravel itself before us. It was the turn of the main course and they served our Dal Bukhara and Nizami Handi in elegant over-sized mug shaped bowls. The quantity of the dishes, I would say, was enormous. So much that we had to request the leftover to be packed for us. The nizami handi was a mix of assorted vegetables in a cashewnut and spinach gravy. The vegetables were as fresh as they could be and had a crunchy texture. They were most likely blanched and added to the gravy. No question of not liking it! Surprisingly, the oil level was so low, it never really flowed out of the dish when served on the plate!( Its a common sight at many places, the oil starts oozing out of the dish minutes after it has been served). The daal bukhara in all its richness was definitely heavy by all means. But frankly, I was a bit confused between daal bukhara served to us and daal makhni,  as I had never been a good judge to distinctively identify the differences. In any case, it really did go well with masala kulcha.

The masala kulcha is one more item on their menu which I would definitely recommend. Quite soft and cooked to perfection, they had a hint of garlic and really complimented the curry and daal that we had ordered.

Honestly, we were full and couldn't really take in another morsel of food. But the excitement of pondering over how the Kashmiri Pulao would be served, refused to die down. So we decided to wait until they serve us a tiny helping to taste and then request them to parcel it along with the gravy-curry and daal. True to their style, they served it in a claypot and it did look enticing! Kashmiri pulao tends to be on the sweeter side a bit and this one indeed had bits of pineapple, semi-ripe papaya, cherries which added a subtle sweetness to the pulao. And there was a generous dose of cashewnuts as well. It wasn't oily at all and quite lighter in taste as compared to the daal bukhara.

Apart from food, the thing that impressed me to a great extent was the impeccable service. No delays(apart from the customary wait time for preparation), no unheeded requests, no mistakes in order and service, no unnecessary attention! Really appreciate them for the extra mile they go to make theirs guests comfortable and hope they continue to do the same.

Food - 4/5
Ambiance - 4/5
Service - 5/5
VFM - 4/5
Wow factor - vegetarian menu at par with non-vegetarian menu, service
Thumbs down - nothing really!

I am sure I will come back to try out their non-vegetarian menu soon!

Sigree - Begumpet, Hyderabad

Had been to Sigree about a couple of weeks back for a family lunch. Liked their ambiance, but felt the buffet area was a bit cramped. They claimed to have a special menu on the occasion of Independence day and it read out like - 2 soups, 5 veg starters, 5 non-veg starters, 6 veg main dishes, 3 non-veg main dishes, naan/roti/paratha and 7 dessert items.

We went in at about 12:30 PM and we were promptly seated, the restaurant being relatively empty with only a couple of tables occupied. But it became crowded in the next hour. We were served a complimentary drink and they informed us that they would be serving the soups and starters on the table. No wonder they couldn't find space to keep starters in the buffet array(like I mentioned earlier that it was full and cramped). We asked for the murgh kali mirchi soup, which I didn't like at all. It felt like more of a hot turmeric water with a faint scent of pepper and bits of chicken. The turmeric was definitely prominent. The starters were quite good, the fish being tender and fresh, the chicken tikkas and sheekh kebabs being quite succulent and juicy. In veg starters, we really liked the Afgani tikki, which had chana dal as its main ingredient, and the Dilliwali tikki topped with a spoonful of curd and onion julienne.

The main course had only 3 non-veg dishes - mutton biryani, murgh lababdaar, ajwaini machli curry, as against about 5-6 veg dishes. I frankly didn't try most of the veg dishes. The mutton in the biryani was tender and optimally(or rather mildly) spiced, but I felt the biryani rice was a bit dry. The murgh lababdaar was quite good and the flavors of the gravy had infused into the chicken quite well. Ajwaini machli curry was low on spice level as well. Boneless fillets of fish(and I really like this as I hate picking out fish bones) had been cooked in a gravy having a distinct flavor of carom seeds. They did serve a bowl of basmati rice and naans on the table. The rice wasn't in the buffet line up - the explanation that they gave - it tends to become a bit cold and dry and loses flavor. They serve it fresh and piping hot on the table to retain its flavor. Good enough.

The desserts did strike a chord with me. Nothing was overly sweet. I really liked the caramel custard, the bread pudding and the moong dal halwa - a rarity for me as I never have moong dal halwa anywhere.

Coming to service, I found it to be abysmally slow. I was completely frustrated by the slowness with which they served the starters. We went in at about 12:30 PM and out first set of starters was served almost after 20 mins. Even after multiple requests, we waited quite long for our starters to be repeated. In fact there was a paneer rawalpindi in the menu which never made it to our table. Serving starters directly from the kitchen is a good idea, but I would never want to wait 15 mins for a refill or 2nd serving, especially when only 2-3 pieces are served each time.The staff however was courteous and friendly. But service definitely has to improve, no question about that. The bill was around 1100 or so for 2 persons(we paid for bottled water) which I think is quite decent enough for the food.

Food - 3.5/5
Ambiance - 3.5/5
Service - 1.5/5
VFM - 3.5/5
Wow Factor - starters
Thumbs down - service

Would like visit again to try their a la carte dishes.