Serengeti (Ohri's), Banjara Hills, Hyderabad

 

If you love to stay in Hyderabad, then you love food. Of all the other reasons why I love this city, food is on the top of my list. Yet, for some strange reason I had never been to Serengeti before.  Though, I had heard rave reviews about it, my tryst with the place never happened.

So you can imagine my excitements when my friends suggested we go to that place for dinner. True to what I heard, the moment I stepped in, it felt like I walked into an African jungle. The ambiance was very serene; I noticed that there was great attention to details. The ambiance was really awesome, now a lot of my friends debate oh we’ve seen better themed restaurants, I’m sure there are, but you got to give credit where it is due.

I liked the way it was maintained, while the theme was kept intact, the area was dimly lit, but bright enough for things to be visible and the entire dining area was well maintained.

We were greeted very well by “Devi Prasad” yes I remember his name, he seemed like a new kid on the block. Those who have been to Serengeti will know that the stewards are dressed as hunters here.

Now was the time to place the orders, since it was about 10 in the night, my friends and I decided to skip starters and jump straight to the food. The menu was full of exotic dishes, the description of each sounded like a saga in itself. We finally decided to order murgh lahori.

Now in my humble opinion of the true test of a place and its quality of food lies in one and one thing only (true only for Indian or moghul cuisine) and that is Dal Makhani, so that was a no brainer. We ordered Dal Serengeti along with a bread basket (sounds international, but was a bunch of various kinds of Naan)

The wait for food was filled with our amazing conversation (which never makes any sense but is the most hilarious kind in the world) interrupted by a serving of papad, mint chutney, sweet papaya, onion and mixed pickle. Now these simple thing add the extra zing to any food, rather Indian food would be incomplete without them.

The food comes, much to our delight looks really good. The fanatic that I am, I first taste the Dal Makhni (Dal Serengeti), and it tasted really good. It was not a tomato overkill, cooked to perfection, the right blend of spices. I would rate it really good; considering there are only three other places in the city I think serve better dal makhni (out of the places I have tasted).

The murgh lahori, was white gravy with the chicken cooked just right, not more not less, and It tastes really good. The bread basket which is a mouthful, was finishing like it was hardly there, we liked the fact that everything we asked for was served without any delay. And we usually ask for a lot of stuff trust me.

Though we did not have much, we payed around 1500 bucks which I think is fair enough for three people, yes it is not cheap but not expensive either. The horror stories about it being too expensive were really false.

I’d say this would be a start of a series of post on Serengeti as I would like to explore their menu more and pretty soon.

Until the next meandering stop, Bon Appetite!!!