ROYAL HALEEM, KONDAPUR

This was a small place that Navin, Cyrus and I chanced upon after work. We headed out in search of a small Haleem place. Note the term ‘small’. We were in search of beef haleem and wanted to try an unheard of place for a change. I was pleasantly surprised by this small setup in Kondapur. The lack of meat was evident but the sheer flavour of the Haleem was superb. A veritable explosion of flavour greeted me with the first bite. No bones. No whole masalas. Just a plateful of goodness. It tasted so good, I forgot about the meat completely. To top it all, they only charged us 30 bucks a plate. Cyrus asked for more fried onions and the guy on top of the bhatti, generously gave all our plates another round of garnishing half way through. We drove off more than satisfied.

Fun fact: This place cooks and serves Haleem only during the month of Ramzan. The rest of the year, its a mutton shop.

RATING – 7 on 10

HITEC BAWARCHI, MADHAPUR

Ah! Good old Hitec Bawarchi. We braved a mighty storm and made it to HB in my trusty old Esteem. It was an interesting experience, packed with traffic, rain and much swearing. For starters, one of my rear (power) windows started being a b*tch and refused to go back up after Navin inexplicably lowered it the storm. It rained inside the car for a good ten minutes before we reached our destination and coaxed my temperamental automobile into rolling the glass up again. Then, there was no electricity at the Hitec Bawarchi. We stood there in the dark and ate our respective haleems quickly in the light of a kerosene lamp.

Luckily, the Haleem itself was good. One cool thing was the fried and shredded chicken they were using as one of the garnishes. Tasty, well rounded haleem, rich in flavours and seasoning. Worth the 70 bucks they charged.

RATING – 6 on 10

BIRYANI DARBAR, TRIMULGHERRY

I’m a huge fan of the biryani from this place. I really think they dish out some of the best biryani in Hyderabad. Unfortunately, it looks like Haleem isn’t their thing. I hated the Haleem they served up. The bland brown goop reminded me mutton flavoured fevicol. Lousy on all counts and 80 bucks a plate to boot! What a f*cking waste!

RATING – 3 on 10

In other news, UFC 102 was awesome. Major props to Randy Couture for hanging in there with Nogueira and putting on such a great show. It amazes me that the man is 46! Nate Marquardt score a beautiful one punch KO over Demian Maia and Jake Rosholt put Chris Leben to sleep via triangle choke. All in all a very good card. Also, the new ring girl Natasha is cute. 😀

I also watched the first Forrest Griffin – Stephan Bonnar fight after a long time today. What a defining moment for MMA! One of my favourite fights ever! More later.

Over and out.