Hello Curry!

If you thought made-to-go food would always be packaged in bland looking white plastic boxes or aluminum foil packs, then you definitely need to try Hello Curry once. Be it your regular lunch and dinner, or a gathering with friends and colleagues, Hello Curry ensures that you do openly (or even secretly) admire their colorful and innovative packaging while enjoying delectable selections off their menu.

I attended a tasting session recently at the first restaurant that Hello Curry has opened in the Hitech City area and I must say they have gone to great lengths in making their restaurant as colorful as their packaging. Most of their stories printed on the boxes and on the restaurant walls have been derived from Bollywood masala, with a twist of food added in each of them.

Since this was an tasting session for new dishes to be introduced, they hadn't named any of their dishes yet. The first veg dish had a good mix of veggies and spiced just about right. It did have mild Andhra flavors(like all the other dishes presented afterwards) and went great with rice or chapati.

The rice was a let down. It was hard and under cooked. Or rather, cooked then frozen and then thawed, making it quite chewy. But feedback was taken promptly and assurance for properly cooked rice was given. I would say it was a one of instance, a rare one too, considering I had been a customer for close to a year and I had never encountered this before. The chapati - quite average. Somehow I feel they really need to improve on chapati.

The paranthas have come a long way. But they still have scope for improvement. When Hello Curry initially started their operations, the paranthas were something I felt missed the tang that other dishes had. At the tasting session, the paranthas were moist, soft and tasted much better than they used to be. Yet, scope for improvement is there.

The mutton curry in a thick gravy base was the star of the show, only if I can ignore the fact that it was a bit chewy. This would be ideal for people looking out for a spicy non-veg dish. Both rice and chapati would complement it.

These are some of the new dishes that they have planned to introduce. The dish pictured below is a crispy corn pulav. The pulav rice was something very close to baghara rice that is very popular in Andhra/Telengana cuisine. The battered fried baby corn was crisp, but I felt it wouldn't taste as good if it were cold. Would recommend having this hot.

The crispy paneer pulav was okay, nothing great to talk about. I would say the crispy corn tasted much better than the paneer pulav, ofcourse the pulav rice was exactly the same.

The next set of pulavs were of chicken flavors - one a Andhra style fried chicken pulav and the other one a sort of battered fried chicken pulav. The Andhra fried chicken pulav had that tangy and spiced flavor which is very popular in this region. The pulav rice is obviously the standardized baghara rice that has been used for the veg and non-veg pulavs. The battered fried chicken was quite good as well, giving out different taste and making itself distinguishable from the Andhra fried chicken and I liked both.

The chicken curry that followed was something I did enjoy. It had the right balance of spice and flavors and went well with steamed rice.

They have also introduced parathas. We got to taste a corriander-chicken paratha and a jeera onion stuffed paratha among others. The jeera onion paratha had quite good flavor and the jeera was not really over-powering. The chicken corriander paratha was decent, but I would be complaining of not enough stuffing inside to call it a stuffed paratha. Feedback given!

Creative artwork on the packaging boxes is always top-notch!

Hello Curry now has a face to their name by way of a restaurant and the pricing is pocket friendly. The tasting session went quite well with substantial feedback - both positive and negative. Mr. Sandeep Varma and Mr Raju Bhupati, the entrepreneurs have really done a job well with Hello Curry delivery system and they did note down all the feedback to make their restaurant a go-to place in Hitech City area. Wishing them all the best for their venture!

~By Invitation~