Life & Style | Food
Home truths on a plate
The cosy Hyderabad Rocks does its namesake cuisine to perfection, for a price that won't break the bank.
- By Suparna Dutt D'Cunha, Copy Editor
- Published: 22:56 June 23, 2009
The cosy Hyderabad Rocks does its namesake cuisine to perfection, for a price that won't break the bank.
If it's hot, spicy and tastes home made, you have a winner. I've always found the hotter it is or the spicier it gets, the higher the number of takers, and for Hyderabad Rocks, the name says it all.
It doesn't need graphic lettering on the doorway or a trendy menu card, crystal on the shelves or stunning decor to make it rock; good food - the reason you go to a restaurant - is why it draws a full house.
Located in Karama, the hub of Indian eateries, this restaurant churns out authentic Andhra food only a ladle removed from your mum's fare.
After years of eating out in hotels, I have realised that the best way to analyse food at an expensive restaurant - clouded as one's opinion might be by the address, ambience, price and cutlery - is to assume it was cooked at a really downmarket joint, and decide how you'd feel about it.
Since Hyderabad Rocks is neither a five-star hotel nor an expensive eatery, you pay for the food, and not the flash. Here the cooking is as impeccable as memory recalls and at a very affordable price.
It doesn't try to be more than it is by adding a Chinese or an Italian section to the menu. It offers just a few of each type of dish - an advantage very few new eateries start out with.
When you step into the restaurant, it is like a homecoming. It's small, one wall has dramatic black, white and grey photographs of Hyderabad, past and present. The period ambience reminiscent of ancient glory, whispering from centuries past, is alluring. The timelessness of the images allows the present to be pictured as the past, and for the past to be seen from the present, awakening one's senses to the splendour of both the city and its food.
Let me tell you, Hyderabadi cuisine is not simply idli-sambar. Anybody who wouldn't venture beyond Hyderabadi biryani has begun to look towards the "hot" world of Andhra food.
We started with hariyali chicken kebab - if your palate can take the softness of cuisine that hovers between spicy and fiery, you'll enjoy it. The herb-fragrant kebab is melt-in-the-mouth perfect.
For the main course, we went on to have baigaree baignan - eggplant simmered in a tamarind, peanut and coconut gravy - with chapatis (Indian flatbread).
This dish is something you'd eat grumpily if your mum cooked it, and have probably even refused several times while growing up, but here you'd lick your fingers clean. It's cooked to a teasing firmness. Khatti dal - thick sour lentil soup - also worked well with chapatis. Perhaps an additional dash of salt would have enhanced its zing.
But the highlight of the meal was definitely taala hua gosht - mutton fried in Hyderabad spicy masala. It was impeccable: juicy, tender and sizzling with flavour and offset by sautéed spring onions and green chillies - the meat done to the right spiciness with distinct top notes of pepper.
Then came the famed biryani - the greatest export sensation of Nawabi cuisine. From the delicate to the rich, spicier preparations, there are a hundred ways to say it with rice - each one is as distinctive as your own signature.
No wonder then every other Indian and Pakistani restaurant in the city has biryani on its menu, but hardly any match up to their reputation.
This was almost perfect - you can't leave without trying the biryani and the portions really are generous.
Replete from all this fantastic fare, I was in a near stupor before dessert. They do have the usual sweet fare, as expected in an Indian restaurant, but just like the surprise that often crops up over a dinner at home, Hyderabad Rocks has one tucked one into its menu - kheer (sweetened rice porridge)!
Did you ask what we missed out on? The answer: nothing.
The waiters too were friendly yet unobtrusive, which sets Hyderabad Rocks apart from the dirham-a-dozen multi-cuisine restaurants in the city.
- Where: Hyderabad Rocks, Karama Tel: 04-3977882
- Decor: Simple seating, no-frills
- Must Haves: Taala hua gosht and baigaree baigan
- Ambience: Go just for good food, not for a romantic dinner
- Price: Dh107 for two four forks
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