I’ve been meaning to write about this place for about a week now. We had a little send off party planned for one of our work mates last week and were looking to go to some place new.. The new Ohri’s outlets on Necklace Road have been the talk of the town recently, so we decided to give them a shot.

First off, they’ve got a great location. Right beside Jalavihar, pretty close to Prasads and finally something not too far away from Secunderabad.. So heres the thing, there are two restaurants here.. Havmor 70mm on the ground floor and 1857 on the first. 70mm is a huge Bollywood themed eatery while 1857 is a classy outdoor open-air restobar..

We had initially planned to eat at 1857, but I found the seats a tad uncomfortable and most of us found it too hot to sit outside.. We headed downstairs and decided to eat at 70mm.. I’ll say this much folks, I was blown away by the decor of the place. The Ohri’s group has gone all out with this one and the look of the joint is truly unique..

I know a picture is worth a thousand words, but since I didn’t carry my camera, please make do with these 48 below:

They’ve got snippets of Bollywood all over the place.. Movie posters plastered all over the place.. A life size Amitabh Bachchan from Amar Akbar Anthony (fake easter egg and all), Helen in her golden cage from Piya Tu and even a bunch of mannequins carefully suspended in poses that can only be described as mid-dishoom.

We got a table pretty easily and they handed us a gigantic menu. No seriously, it was huge. I opened it and knocked Saurav’s glasses off. A largely continental menu, it had some interesting stuff on it. Starters were a little hard to order though. They didn’t really have anything appealing in that department. We ordered a pot of Cheese fondue, a portion of Spicy Chicken fingers and a portion of Mollets (for the vegetarians).

These took their own sweet time getting to the table. They eventually arrived but the stuff was pretty average to be honest. The fondue was nice but I couldn’t help comparing it to the one at Indijoe’s. To quote my sister Deeksha, “Indijoe’s fondue is simply mmmplllaaah”. I’m guessing that’s a good thing. I agree. Ohri’s fondue isn’t a patch on Indijoe’s.

We got through the starters pretty quick and then proceeded towards the main course. We placed our orders and then patiently waited for one hour. This was tiresome. Lucky for us, we had enough conversation to keep busy, what with the farewell speeches and all.

The food finally arrived. I’d ordered a Chicken Stroganoff with buttered rice. I know that the other Havmor outlets make this really well and was kinda looking forward to it. While the Stroganoff here was nice, I’d still say that Havmor at Basheerbagh makes the best one yet. Generous portion sizes all around.. That was cool.. All the main courses were okay except for the ones which had Risotto with them. This is where the kitchen screwed up. The rice was undercooked. We told the service staff and they gave us the whole, “This is how Risotto is supposed to be” bullshit. The chef came out and started telling me about the rice and everything. Now, I like chefs. Everyone knows that. But here’s the thing. I like Risotto a hell of a lot more!

I know Risotto personally. We went to college together. I’ve learnt how to make this as part of my curriculum at college and unfortunately had to cut the grains of Arborio rice in half and show the chef the still white epi-center before he agreed to redo the order.. He replaced the rice with regular Basmati but at least it was fully cooked. The rest of the food was okay. The Chole Bature – an Ohri’s classic was superb as expected.

This restaurant scored big on the desserts. They’ve got a cold stone set up and the quality of ice cream served is fantastic. All the desserts we ordered were excellent. I strongly recommend something called, ‘Lord of the Nuts’. Its an insane thing to call an ice cream (I’m guessing the Lord of the nuts would be anything but frigid) but it was a really good sundae loaded with, well.. nuts.

The service is kinda shoddy here.. Although, they’ve got a pretty efficient guy called Ali working there, its not enough if the rest of the team isn’t behind him. I’d give the food a 6.5 on 10 at best and the service a 5. The ambience, again is fantastic! I definitely see myself going to this place again. Its new and I’m willing to give them a chance to take that big sip of water (hopefully not from the Hussain Sagar) to get rid of their service hiccups [and plus I want to see that Helen mannequin again]{I love parentheses :P}.

Over and out.