We visited Ada Hind Ki this past Sunday based on the suggestion of Harish who happened to drop in on my blog recently. Since Anoushka is now being groomed into becoming a restaurant junkie like her parents, she asked us where we were going? When we told her, she decided to rechristen Ada Hind Ki as "Ada Hindu ki Ma". Maybe it does make sense in her baby world, but to us it served for a good pre-lunch laugh.

It being Sunday, better half and junior decided to rise at 11.30 (that too after being booted out of bed). I was starving by then since I had skipped breakfast and soon we headed out to Ada Hind Ki. Got there easily enough, it being on Museum Road (its on the same road as The Only Place with Empire at the end of the road). Part of the HM Group, its driveway is a really steep one and then you have the luxury of valet parking.

You have to go up a wooden staircase to get to the restaurant. The ground floor is home to the Chinese restaurant In China. Now I was really up for a long a la carte meal and so was really really disappointed when we were told there was a buffet on and that the restaurant was not prepared to handle an a la carte meal. Its been an overdose of buffets in the recent past. Every restaurant seems to be resorting this method.

Anyways, since we were there and my stomach was not up for a long wait, we dove right in. Soup and starters were brought to the table. Chicken soup and a range of starters, chicken kebabs, tawa fried fish, onion-kheema-malai chops and a mutton dish. All of which were very well done and tasted good enough for another round of a few of them.

The buffet tables were set separate for the vegetarian and non-vegetarian courses, which ensured that there was a good spread for both sides. The was also a salad bar as well as a live pani puri counter.

Rotis were brought to the table and to go with that was a methi chicken which was thick, loaded with methi and delicious. Mutton rogan josh was again the onion-tomato based thick gravy. Again, loaded with flavor, piping hot and excellent along with the rotis.

Then came the mutton dum biryani. The wheat seal was broken in front of us. The biryani was wonderfully light, with the rice fluffy and flavored with a raisin paste. The use of raisin paste is something I have seen in traditional Mangalorean cooking which makes a chutney out of raisins to go with sweet pulaos. Anyways, this inclusion made the biryani wonderful. To go with this was the Burani raita, a Hyderabadi specialty. This raita is made out of strained mixture of milk, crushed garlic, yogurt and chilli powder and went wonderfully with the biryani.

I wish I had room for the pani puri which I personally adore, but I was not about to let go of the desserts. There was warm Rajbhog, hot jalebis (so they claimed but they were not), a peach cake and hot sabudana kheer. A lovely end to a satisfying meal. To wash all this down as an nice mint flavored jal jeera as well as tasty buttermilk.

Though a buffet was not really what I wanted, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. The number of items were limited, but each one was well made and could not really be faulted. Service was nice without be too in-your-face. The ambiance is nice but can get a bit noisy when the place fills up. Toilets need some work on the maintenance areas as they are not really clean. The entire meal came to Rs 299 a head (Orange Peel can learn a lesson or two on buffets from this place).