Thai Festival at Novotel; Hyderabad

As we entered the dining room of the Novotel Hotel in Hyderabad where the Thai festival was being held, we were greeted by a beautiful young girl in full Thai regalia, who gave out an exotic flower to each of us and led us to our tables. In the dining area, there was a Thai dancer, but I am not sure what art form she was performing. I had heard that Thai dances are generally dramas, that each dance tells a story. But the dancer in Novotel was swaying gracefully to the music being played (live) and looked wonderful, but I don’t think there was a story involved. It was nice to watch, though.

Nixing cocktails and mocktails in favour of going straight to the buffet, we went to take a look at the many dishes served. That’s when I got my first shock of the evening; there were Moong Dal Halwa and Rasmalai being served at the dessert section! There was a medley of exotic looking fruit, cheese, ice cream, éclairs etc, but none of them looked like Thai sweets! Where were the Khanom and the sweet coconut custard? I saw some look choob, but they looked singularly unappetizing. If I am talking about desserts first, it is because that is how the buffet was laid out, don’t ask me why.

As I moved towards the salad bar, the shock was intensified by the completely continental salad, consisting shredded carrots, capers, pickled cucumbers, rosemary potatoes etc. There was also a mushroom salad and a tofu salad, that just about gave the salad bar a Thai look, but conspicuous by their absence were Thai salads such as the Thai green papaya salad (my favourite), Pineapple salad, Shrimp Salad, Cucumber Salad, etc.

There were two soups being served – a Tom Yum vegetarian soup and some non-vegetarian soup, which unfortunately I did not pay attention to, since I am a vegetarian. Grateful for the Tom Yum soup, I ladled some into a bowl. Served with the soup was Italian bread (!) and papad (!!). The soup was liberally spiked with hot sauce and I was able to down only about 3-4 spoons and then I gave up.

Main course included decidedly non-Thai entrees such as curd rice (I kid you not), Dahi Vada, Dal and Vegetable Biryani. But they did make an allowance to the fact that it was a Thai festival by providing dishes like Thai Red and Green Curry (with chicken or vegetables), Chicken Satay, Thai fried rice, and some assorted vegetables in a tangy garlicky sauce. Along with the main course, there were some spring rolls. I don’t know why they were not with the appetizers.

Where were the dim sum, the pad thai, the pad king, pad kao, pad pak, etc???

For the princely sum of Rs 800 (+tax + tip) per person, we were royally cheated. This was definitely not a Thai festival; you can go to any Thai restaurant and get more range for a lot less. The bar was laid out wrong, there were only a few Thai dishes, and the dance did not seem genuine either. The serving staff was over-zealous; at some point they folded all our napkins while we were still in the middle of the meal!

Miss this one.

Basil in Banjara Hills

The newly built Lumbini mall houses this pure vegetarian restaurant on the fourth floor. The interiors are well decorated and there was no crowd, we were given seating as soon as we arrived. Since we were hungry, we asked to order right away and the staff obliged most graciously. For starters we ordered the crudites and the “tandoori phool” (which was a cauliflower marinated in yogurt and some spices and “charred” according to the restaurant). The crudites were served with a yummy peanut chutney and the tandoori phool had what I call an “interesting” taste – for some reason it seemed smothered in Wasabi, which is not a traditional Indian spice.

The restaurant does not actually favor any cuisine in particular, it had Indian, Chinese, Continental and Italian dishes on the menu, so there is something for everyone to choose from. We ordered some mocktails, I had the coco-loco which was pretty good.

Main course for us consisted of dum biryani and stuffed capsicum, the stuffed capsicum is a gravy based curry which complemented the biryani pretty well. The biryani was served with a mirchi ka salan and some raita. By the time we ate all this, we were stuffed, and did not order any desserts. So I have no comments on those :)

Overall the food was decent, the staff was very attentive and the fact that there is complementary valet parking and a good decor with no waiting makes it a pleasant place to go have a meal. The only problem, if I have to come up with something, was that the staff kept asking us how the food was but I can’t hold it against them.