Hyderabad Rocks

Rocking Karama restaurant has spectacular curries 2 Reviews

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I was craving a stellar restaurant. Anything to brighten up the sleepy summer months, when the only openings one can hope for belong to already well-established chains. For weeks I’d pass by a brightly lit crimson restaurant, whose signage screamed at being all these things: Hyderabad Rocks. Was it a self-promoting name, or perhaps a message from the Indian tourist board?

As my date and I slid up to a table we found ourselves immediately enamoured by the cheerful decor. One wall was coated in black-and-white photographs of Hyderabad, while a dozen near-identical, glittering light fixtures drew the eye overhead.

‘I like this place already,’ my date said. The fact that the restaurant was packed also boded well. The menu was meat heavy, evident of the cuisine’s Mughlai influences and, even for those well versed in the language of Indian menus, the names here bore few clues about what to expect. We went on the waiter’s recommendations and split two dishes that he assured us were the house specialities. The first, achari murg, was a sharp, seductive chicken dish. The meat, served on the bone, was prepared like a well-spiced pickle (achari is often translated as ‘pickle-like’). The ingredients were ninjas on the tongue.

One moment, a hint of lime would sneak an attack on your tongue. You might think: where did that come from? And, as you were mulling it over, garlic and ginger would pair to perform a couple covert moves of their own. The tala hua gosht – fried, marinated lamb – was salty, but this was actually an asset. My companion echoed my sentiment: ‘It’s salty, but good salty,’ he said. I had never before thought of what ‘good salty’ meant.

It had the same addictive quality as jerky, and a texture to match. And while the meat was dry this too worked to its advantage, so much so that my companion and I agreed it was the best of a very good bunch.
‘This is proper fresh,’ my date boasted between mouthfuls. But really, it was more than that. It was vibrant, it was alive, it was startling. It was everything I had hoped it would be.

This was a place that cared about details. Even a simple order of naan bread came out flakier than many of its brethren. We finished things off by splitting an order of double ka meetha, a traditional Hyderbadi dessert made from bread soaked in milk. What came out was disconcertingly yellow. (‘It looks like Chernobyl,’ my date said). The colour aside (I think it might have come from a sprinkling of saffron), it was a juicy, spongy, enthralling dessert.

The answer to the obvious question is yes, Hyderabad Rocks did rock. It was a place that was created out of love – such seemed obvious from warm, welcoming interior, the thoughtful menu and the intricately planned dishes. A feature of Hyderabadi cuisine is that it is often slow cooked, so perhaps a certain time-honed tenderness comes naturally to the kitchen. Either way, it translates into a cosy, comforting spot for a spectacular evening curry.

The bill (for two)
1x Lime soda Dhs8
1x Pepsi Dhs3
4x Naan Dhs16
1x Large Masafi water Dhs4
1x Achari murg Dhs18
1x Tala hua gosht Dhs22
1x Double ka meetha Dhs12
Total Dhs83

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