Richies has been like an elusive chocolate to me. Sudhakar visited this place some time back with colleagues and was raving about the biryani here. Rahhman's family International, better known as Richies is in Fraser Town. Am pretty bad at giving the left-right kind of directions so will not send you on a wild goose chase. I was dying to go there right after he told me about it. But then that week happened to be an overdose of home cooked biryani for us.

The following week I read a review of Richies which again spoke of the biryani in words that would make the orifices of stones' water. But yet again the weekend was spent visiting the places where Sudhakar was playing with Bourbon Street. This past weekend when none of the suggestions on my Facebook request worked out, Sudhakar said, "Lets go to Richies!!" and so there I was.

Richies at 2.15 in the afternoon was packed to the brim and overflowing. They have a pretty comfortable A/C set up on the first floor and we were seated in Five minutes flat. Service I must say is really slow. 10 minutes later came the water and the menus. Of course two mutton biryanis were the order of the day. I also wanted to order the Bheja Fry and something called Scissor chicken out of curiosity. But we were informed that these were not available. So we settled for a half plate of grill chicken and a mango milkshake (sudhakar's choice for some strange reason).

The biryanis took a further 15 minutes to arrive, but after that it was pure heaven. Once you empty the bowl onto your plate, just the aroma is enough to send all your senses into overdrive. The meat is as soft as my baby's cheeks and there are ample number of them to gorge on. You will not find cloves, cinnamon and bay leaf pieces in every mouthful as will normally happen with biryanis. Though you will find that each morsel is rightly flavoured with these.

Another great thing about this biryani is the grease factor or rather the apparent lack of it. Your fingers will not be oily once you are done, simple water is enough to get them squeaky clean. Also unlike other biryani places, Richies gives you a tomato sherwa as against the mutton gravy to go along with the biryani. Of course there is raita as well. The tomato sherwa (not hot, though I wish it was) is the right amount of tanginess and compliments the biryani like the dollop of ice-cream on a bowl of hot chocolate fudge.

The grilled chicken too took its own sweet time in appearing. Taste wise I would say it was great with the outside marination being grilled to a crisp. It was nice and spicy. In this dish as well unlike most grilled chicken dishes, the meat on the inside was well cooked without being hard. Often a sign of being in the grill for too long.

Your biryani comes with a sweet dish as well which changes on a regular basis. We were served Gajar ka halwa and were first disappointed with the quantity and then realised why it was so. Each bite is like taking in a heart attack inducing quantity of ghee. Tt was yumm but over the top in ghee. Nothing great about the milkshake.

In terms of service the place really needs a slap on the wrist. I guess it stems from a superiority complex on the demand for their food. Check your glasses for floaters before you drink from them. I was actually surprised that the loo for place like this was clean. And as for the wallet factor - all of this came to a lovely Rs 330. If you love a good biryani, then head here, am sure the biryani will trump out the bad service.