Sahib Sindh Sultan..The royal treatment

26 October'2011. It's Diwali & i wasn't home as i have to be at work on the day 'coz as per my office calender the next day was holiday. Yeah yeah thats bad. Smooth traffic & not much of happening at office either as it was an holiday for all the companies. I was out by 5:00PM. Planned for a dinner with some of my friends. Lot of options Paradise, Bassera Inn, GreenPark, Fourseasons, Hotel Daspalla etc etc. Finally landed up at City center for Indijoe. But no buffet and no north indian or south indian food either. So forced to come out and look for an other option. There it was Sahib Sindh Sultan.

Some time back when i had been to Indijoe for a lunch buffet, Sahib Sindh Sultan caught my eye. But heard from one of my friends thats the prices are sort of a bit high & franckly never got a chance to visit either. So, it was the chance.

Being diwali, not much of crowd.The staff was neatly dressed and was quick in reception and led us to a table in no time. The staff was courteous enough to answer all my stupid time pass questions about the reason for naming it Sahib Sindh Sultan. It felt like being on Palace On Wheels sooner i realised i was in the railway compartment theme platform of Sahib Sindh Sultan. It was awesome. The waiters were dressed in royal brigadier style with antique type costumes and tall caps.

Though the platform is dimly lit, the comparment ambience is great, franckly a notch above great.  The plush & antique looking interiors were the things that your mind will last till sometime.

The serving tables in railway compartment like seating area.

Way out to give you more feel with the railway compartment theme.

The huge sized menu was handedover to fish out your order from the long list of dishes offered. The first sentence in the menu says,  "If you want to eat like a king or be treated like a queen, then the right place....", a very nice way to start with.

I felt like the prices are not really high but moderately high than what we get at Paradise or Ohris. The staff was pleasant and was helpful to pick the right choice. We were actually intended to try out some spicy stuff where as most of the dishes served a bit of what you call Gujarathi. Sweet sense in most of the dishes. Quick discussions & assumptions about the ingredients and we finally ordered,

Tandoori Mushroom Shakkhand & Babycorn masala for starter and

Vilayati Subz Panch Mel  & Dal Palak Double Tadka for main course along with Butter Naan

 and ended with Steamed Rice & Tadka Dahi.

The food was very tasty & quite reddiiish suggesting spicy taste. Tandoori Mushroom Shakkhand & Babycorn masala  was a kind OK. But Vilayati Subz Panch Mel  was too good and enough spicy. It was made of english vegetables(i wonder how they are different from regular one's) and spices roasted on coal. Dal Palak Double Tadka was crisp and suplemented the Butter Naan very well. Served in a small size pot is Tadka Dahi is something which i should talk about also. Dahi was fresh & delicious & hard like cake. Little did i expect the Steamed rice made of Basmathi Rice. Supplemented with Fresh Lime Soda Water it was an heavy dinner. Except the late serving time the experience was memorable.

After the sumptuous dinner, we were handover another menu for the Paans being served. Long list of paans but we ordered for Calcutta Sweet Pan for 40 bucks each. Huge but tasty paan it was. I should have ordered an ice cream pan for a change but was not ready for any experiements after the heavy dinner.

Here go the prices & ratings:

Pax - 4
Tandoori Mushroom Shakkhand & Babycorn masala - Rs.230
Vilayati Subz Panch Mel - Rs.230
Steamed Rice - Rs.120
Dal Palak Double Tadka - Rs.180
Tadka Dahi - Rs.135
Butter Naan - Rs.60 (Each)
Fresh Lime Soda Water - Rs. 85(Each)


Total: 1694(inclusive of VAT, ST etc)
It comes to 425 per person.

Ratings:
Ambience: 9/10
Food: 9/10
Service: 7/10
VFM: 9/10

Would certainly recommend this to others and worth for a second visit.

Kukatpally Chutneys!!..No not again please

Two days back i visited new Chutneys restaurant inaugurated right in the building of Kalyana Kanchi Showroom beside viswanath theatre at JNTU X Roads in Kukatpally.

Chutneys is a chain of restaurants in Banajara hills, Himayathnagar, Secunderabad and now in Kukatpally. I personally am a fond of Chutneys for its speciality in varieties of chutneys served and healthy & wide range of menu. Being a Idly fan, i was tempted to visit the new restaurant in view of huge reputation Chutneys gained though its wee bit expensive.

All the previous tastes and reputation Chutneys gained faded away in a flash. The food was crap and also the service was very late. I took my father to Chutneys for the first time giving him an boasted up description of sumptuous meal i had in other branches. But this experience didn't even left a impression, good immpression is far away, for a second visit. Disappointing!
We ordered Mango Uthappam, Guntur Idli, Babai Hotel Idli, Paneer Tikka Dosa. Well idli was at its best. Dosa & Mango Uthappam is just OK as normal as road side stall. Strange things is, generally Chutneys is special for serving different types of finger licking chutneys, but i wondered when just 5 types of chutneys served in this branch. When enquired about other varities of chutneys, the over humbled waiter replied, "Idhar tho bas yeh hi miltha hain", i said "sirf aaaj key liye nahin hain?", "No sir, is branch mein nahin miltha". Crap!

I don't understand why people ruin their own well established reputation gained over years of work with such a careless treatment & decisions. While other branches (though i visited only 2 of them) serves such a delicious food, i wonder for the reason of such a lame service at this branch.

My ratings,

Ambience - 8/10
Service - 7/10
Food - 5/10
Dinner for 3 - Rs.455
Value for money - 4/10

Own your job

At end of the day, every one works for money, its true & correct as well. But, atleast some % of ownership in your job would be appreciated. "Ownership" was the first thing i learnt at my first company Effigent. It seemed like it was an integral part of every employee with whom i worked at Effigent. This indeed reflects in all the work you do & complete. It has lot much to do with all other factors which help you excel your job. It induces you with all the competent features to show case your capabilities.

In my 6 years stint which included around 3 years in team leading position, i came across some team members who never owned their job. They just worked and never loved their job. Just as mechanical robot. Mechanical work output from them will not contribute much to the company or either themself or either the team. This attitude is quite annoying and will not earn them any points anywhere. In most of the cases, it was apparent that their such attitude was the result of either their old team/manager relationship or the employer treatment towards them or can be attributed to their last miniscule appraisal(which they think not enough for their effort they put in).

Before you feel like saying, "Your are mean", i want to put it, "Love your job, not your company". Follow this, its you and only you who profits.

How?

Spend some time. Think, plan it.

• What would be profitable to you? (professionally careerwise)
• What are your shorterm & longterm goals? (professionally careerwise)
• How your company benefits out of what you learn for your benefit?

Learn at the cost of your company. Use them when ever required at work. Then when you move on there is not much the company loses or you either.

I reiterate, "Love your job, not your company".

All peoples' agitation -- Is it volunteered?

For those living in Hyderabad Telangana related agitations are quite common in the past 3-4 years. Its just a matter of excuse the political drama troop need to call for a bandh/strike. Media hypes that the telangana state formation agitations are intensified by showing some footages. Don't know whats the truth.

The currently happening "All peoples' agitation" called for by Joint Action Committee, government employees of the Telangana region have also boycotted duties to press their demand for a separate statehood. But, how many of them volunteered to boycott the duties? Inspite of the government warning for "No work no pay" clause, how many of them would have volunteered?

Transport - APSRTC reports about a loss of 25 crores due to the last 2 days of strike and Hyderabad had lost Rs.250 crores of business due to commercial trading. All this traffic load is being taken over by the railways to commute in & out of hyderabad and telangana districts. Learnt that even the "Train Roko's" will be organized after 2 days. With that the complete transport system will be at halt in Telangana region. I dont think, whether the private operators would dare to operate fearing the damage of properties from the so called "telangana agitators". With already the petrol price hike buring the common man pocket, if the roads are blocked for petrol transportation in lorries, the ppl que up at the petrol stations.

Industries - The small-medium-large scale industries in & around hyderabad are facing the wrath too due to loss of production. With the transporation in & out of hyderabad already at halt, the required materials for production & other things are not supplied on time. With that the production at halt, with that the daily labour living on daily wages have their lives too at halt.

Education - Even this very important matter is being neglected in all this mess around. For almost 10days all the governement cum private schools,colleges are shut down. Volunteered? With this there is lot of back log created in the academics of the students and may even force the teachers later to push hard or even skip some part to reach the exam targets.

I seriously wonder sometimes, why is it so that the so called "telangana agitators" left out the Software industry. Never ever insisted to call for a bandh to any software company. Is something stopping them? Some benefitive motive stopping them to do so? Are they afraid of something or afraid of somebody? Didn't they find any value addition to consider software industry in their circle of influence?