Food 'n' I, Madhapur Today we had a farewell lunch for one of our team members at Food 'n' I above Ratnadeep Super Market near My Home Navadweepa/Cyber Towers.
This restaurant is very new. Apparently it opened only in the last week of October. The owner is an ex-Microsoft employee, so there's a 20% discount to all MSFT employees who dine here.
The ambience is one of the best I've seen in recent times. The restaurant is very spacious and has three separate parts - Indian, Chinese and bar.
I didn't order the menu so I don't know the names of all the items but here goes - - Tomato Soup - Good. Not the best I've had but this soup is more "Indian" in that there are no bread crumbs and the consistency is different from the usual tomato soups. It's much thinner, but thicker than the typical Andhra tomato rasam. Papad is free with the soup.
- Fried corn (starter) - Very tasty and not very oily at all. All of us absolutely gorged on this.
- Paneer tikka - The paneer was soft and fresh and the amount of spice on the paneer and capsicum pieces was to my taste for this particular dish. I would actually say the preparation was perhaps just a bit too juicy for my tastes but it was enjoyable nonetheless.
- Sabzi Anokhi - Seemed to be a mixed vegetable curry. I could make out broccoli and some other vegetables. Served hot and was nice but I didn't go in for a second helping.
- Handi paneer - I initially said no because of the paneer starter but eventually had a little bit of this. Again, served nice and hot and I was glad I went for the small helping instead of completely avoiding it
. - Yellow dal - Decent; nothing extraordinary.
- Rotis/Parathas/Naans - I was just impressed by the softness of these things despite the fact that they were obviously made from maida. The top layer/crust of the paratha (Kerala paratha style almost) was nice and crispy and the inside was soft and not at all chewy (I hate chewy breads).
- Rice (some pulao) - By this time we were all so full, and there was another non-veg biryani anyway, so we sent this pulao back.
- Ice-cream - We ordered a round of butterscotch scoops. This was clearly some Ratnadeep-issue butter-scotch and not "home-made". Can be easily passed up/ignored.
- Non-veg items - I'm a vegetarian but all the non-veggies around the table seemed to have good fun and were groaning after having had more than their fill of starters, curries and the biryani. So I assume this was all good too.
We had good fun there as to begin with, we were the only people. Slowly a couple of other groups walked in but by this time we were almost done.
The owner stopped by to talk to us. Apparently he's struggling to keep costs under control. Currently he's not spending on any advertising or direct marketing and is relying on word-of-mouth and other social methods. He seemed genuinely pleased with the compliments we handed out to him for the food and talked about "inner peace" ![Smile](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/images/smilies/smile.png) .
Valet parking is available but we didn't use it as the Ratnadeep parking area was empty today noon and parking was no hassle at all.
Total damages = INR 3350 for 11 people. I don't know if the MS discount was applied. I'm sure it was, considering we told the owner we were from MS.
I would suggest this outlet while it's still in its honeymoon period, and I wish the restaurant and its owner long-term success as well.
Regards,
spadix |