Andhra 'Meals'

Yes, rather peculiar, you might say, and I agree. I’ve been in Hyderabad for 2-and-a-half years now, and have never before tried food at a typical Andhra mess, the ones that you’ll find beside streets here and there, all over Hyderabad. But I did already have a fair idea from eating the food served at the Times Of India canteen here, and from a couple of friends’ narrations of their encounter with the Chicken Pulusu and Eguru. When my friends asked the waiter at Abhiruchi, a well known Andhra restaurant in Sec’bad which of the two is less spicy, they met with a smile, and “Sir, Andhra food, all spicy. Pulusu less gravy, Eguru more gravy (or the other way around, I’m not sure).

So, a couple of my colleagues who’re from here, and me, we went to this Andhra mess near Yusufguda checkpost. 35 bucks a plate (sorry, meals, yes, always plural), and well, I who had thought my office food was a not-so-great version of the local cuisine, found the fare much the same. Didn’t know friums (basically, some kind of hollow cylindrical fries) were Andhra food. Anyway, the dal was, as usual, heavily infused with curry leaves, and the rice and potato mash-dry-curry weren’t much of an improvement, really. The Egg curry had a mirchi-ka-salan type of gravy with one egg (not fried) floating in the middle.

As I found others eating around, one helping, two helping, three helping, four…it was again reinforced that quantity rules over quality here.

No, I’m not being a racist here and declaring all things South Indian bad, for I myself am a big fan of Utthapam, and dosa and Mysore Bonda. But make no mistake, that’s not Andhra cuisine. I also totally love the Nizami food in the Old City, the haleem, and the kebabs of Shahdab. But this typically Telugu food, friends, wasn’t quite my palate.  

Good in one way, though. I could now reconcile to the quality of food in the canteen and not feel cheated for being charged 30 bucks for well…

Oh, by the way, the menu also pomised a brain something. Err...think I’ll avoid.