Road 12, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad
Oh, the perils of over-extending your brand! We’d heard a lot about this Delhi restaurant, famed for its vodka-filled golgappa shots. So when it opened a branch in Hyderabad, we went eagerly. But as the Chinese saying goes, it’s sometimes better to travel hopefully than to arrive.
We ordered some of their house specialties: Kasturi Kababs, Meat Punjabi By Nature, Tandoori Prawns and Flambeed Gulab Jamuns (brilliant idea!). Everything came in gargantuan portions: the naan, for example, was two feet wide; the gulab jamuns almost the size of tennis balls. Presumably they’re trying to make some kind of hearty Punjabi statement by this. Which would have been fine, except that everything we ordered was stunningly mediocre. The staff were eager, but inexperienced. And the otherwise stylish interiors were marred by kitsch (like those gaudy neon-blue panels and light fittings). We could go on, but won’t. We read about their plans for a national, and international, roll-out. We suggest they first take time out to read Howard Schultz’s excellent book, Pour Your Heart Into It, about how he built the Starbucks chain. It could save them embarrassments like this one.
