The Cafe Hyatt Regency Pune

An underwhelming experience of sorts !
Rating 3/5.

I was here for a Buffet Dinner on 30th December and my experience in terms of food border-lined between average and just above average. I have been to Eighty Eight in the other Hyatt Property on Nagar Road more than a month ago so it was only natural for me to draw a comparison. I was definitely surprised to observe that the dining experience in Eighty Eight both in terms of quality and quantity was much better than what I experienced in the “The Cafe” at Hyatt Regency, Viman Nagar Pune.

Ambience and seating comfort – I would rate them a very good 4/5 on this parameter.
As with any other Hyatt property the lobby area and approach to the restuarant were dazzling and the seating was comfortable with ample space between the tables to provide the required privacy for those crazy conversations over good food.

The difference here being the food wasn’t quite upto the mark as what it should have been in comparison to other competing five stars in the similar price band.

Service – I would rate them an average 2.5/5 on this parameter.
The rating is primarily because the starters were served in very less quantity at a time and the gap to have them refilled was 15-20 minutes on a number of occasions. I didn’t find any issues with the serving staff as Mr.Nand Kishore did his best to serve us with all the courtesies but I guess the Kitchen wasn’t able to support the staff completely and the infrequent serving of starters wasn’t something I could excuse easily. Another point where the service/kitchen needs to improve is the fact that their desserts counter was getting replenished at a snail pace and there was a point where the counter was almost down to its dumps and wasn’t filled for more than 25 minutes ! During our entire meal we kept waiting for a Pine apple pastry but it could never make it to the desserts section till the time we left.

Food – I would rate them an average 2.5/5 on this parameter.

I am going to talk about the different courses as below and to be really honest I had far better expectations from Hyatt Regency after having had a good meal at Eighty Eight in their other location on the Nagar Road but as the title says it was an underwhelming experience of sorts for sure.

The Starters – I would rate them a good 3.5/5 on this parameter which was incidentally the best part of the meal.

They have 2 veg and 2 Non Veg starters as part of the buffet and the ones making the cut on the day were Chicken Manchurian (4/5), Gobhi Manchurian (2.5/5), Corn Tikki (3.5/5) and Fish fingers (3.5/5). The oriental variant Chicken starter was by far the best of the evening and was crisp from outside while the chicken inside was tender and the combination worked really well. On the other hand the Gobhi Manchurian was absolutely bland when served the first couple of times. However after responding on my feedback during the third serving it came with the required sauce and the usual taste associated with the preparation. The cauliflower however was nice and crispy and not too oily which was the saving grace of the dish.

From the live counter the grilled chicken was okay and our drinks which were Fresh lime soda were a bit inclined towards the sour taste that you get in the seed of lemons so that was bit of a letdown.

The Main Course – I would give them an average 2.5/5 on this parameter.

I never expected the food to be this awkward and downright bland as it was served in the Dinner that day. The only good part of the main course were the oriental dishes, most of the other items in the main course were tasteless and devoid of anything noteworthy.

I tasted Mutton curry, paneer methi malai, tawa subzi, daal etc but none of them could provide any value for the taste buds, apart from the Fried Rice and Chicken preparation in Oriental menu, the only other item which came close to my liking was the Malvani fish curry.

Desserts – I would give them a decent 3/5 on this parameter.

The desserts were a mix of all kind of assorted pastries which were mostly decent and tasted the way they should but it came across a bit single dimensional to be honest. The desserts section could definitely be improved by adding a bit of variety instead of having same kind of desserts in different variants. The choco pastry and paan masaala based ice cream were the best in the desserts and fitting were a good way to end the meal after a disappointing main course.

At the danger of sounding like a broken record I would again like to reiterate that my experience at Hyatt in terms of food quality and service response felt short of expectations by a size-able margin and at least for improving the aspect of food taste they don’t need to look too far, they can always take a cue from their sibling Eighty Eight !

I conveyed my feedback to their Manager Mr.Manjay who actually made notes of my feedback and was all ears for it which is always a good sign. I hope the listed improvements are given the due importance since Hyatt as a brand deserves much more than what was on offer during my dining experience 🙂

Aubergine – Parc Estique Viman Nagar, Pune

November 1, 2015 by aprajitp in Pune Restaurants and tagged Viman Nagar buffet restaurants, Viman Nagar Restaurants | Leave a comment

Talking about the kind of buffets, there are the lavish ones with so many items to choose from that one could hardly taste everything and still be satiated but the probability of finding good items in this kind of scenario are higher simply because of higher number of items.

Then there are buffets which have limited choices which is good in a sense that you get to taste and eat everything but then for such a buffet it’s absolutely essential that you get your preparations spot on else the customer is bound to feel shortchanged.

My buffet experience at Parc Estique lies somewhere between the above two described situations. The buffet wasn’t the most lavish buffet by any stature of imagination, with only one Veg and Non Veg starter it was definitely a bit off putting to start with but as we progressed through the buffet I realized it was quite alright.

Corn tikki – 4/5, this was good and we actually waiting for its second helping for around 15 minutes and delayed our main course. It was soft from inside with a bit of a crunch from its outer covering.

Fish Fingers – 3/5, nothing outstanding, it was standard fish deep fried with a coating to give it a crunchy bite. The preparation could have done more with addition of some spices to give it a distinctive taste but it was almost devoid of any. Also some kind of dip along with this starter would have helped but there wasn’t anything on offer so we had it with green chutney, however it was sans the pungent smell of fish at times so that was the saving grace.

Salads 3.5/5, there were around 3-4 variety of salads with the cold chicken cuts making to my liking along with another variant which I galloped with the starters.

Cola with Strawberry Mocktail – 4/5, it was a pretty good mocktails with a distinct taste and I couldn’t help but have a second serving of the same.

The main course had variety of items with continental, Indian and Chinese options to choose from. I found it really difficult to pin point any preparation that was out of the ordinary or for which I would like to go back and have the buffet again. This was the most surprising part of my overall experience to find a pretty average main course on offer.

From the entire main course boasting of Fish in lemon sauce, Chilly Chicken, fried rice,manchurian, Paneer maithi Malai, Daal fry, Daal Makhani, Mutton Rogan Josh, kadhai chicken, Tawa subzi, Eggplant preparation with some fried potatoes, only a couple of items appealed to me.

The best of the lot was Tawa subzi, a combination of crispy and somewhat spicy beans, carrots and cauliflowers went so well with Daal fry and Butter Naan. It was definitely 4/5 for me.

The other good items worth mentioning are:

Fish in lemon sauce – 3/5, absolute tender preparation of fish in a gravy that could have had some more taste but it was fairly alright.

Mutton Rogan Josh & Kadhai Chicken – 3/5, they were pretty Ok but somehow as aforementioned I didn’t find any wow factor associated even with these dishes which were relatively better than the rest.

Surprisingly I would rate the desserts far better than the rest of the stuff and items worth mentioning are strawberry soufflé, pineapple crumble, creamy gulabjamun and I must mention the Rabdi was very nice, definitely desserts deserve a rating of 4/5. I didn’t quite like the Jalebi but the other items more than made up for it.

Talking about service it wasn’t the most efficient to begin with as we had to really wait for the only thing they were serving i.e. the starters and with only 3-4 tables occupied during the first 30-45 minutes I thought they could have certainly done better. Though later on one Mr.Aniket tried his best to make up for the earlier shortcomings and served us well.

Ambience was pretty good and there was another group of guys who were shouting and talking so loud as if it a road side dhaba was the only disturbing part and I wondered if they could have been reminded of where they were but anyway that wasn’t really the restaurant’s problem but probably plain bad luck to have buffoons as company I guess 😉

Overall I won’t say this was a bad experience but it wasn’t a very good one as well, thanks to the people responsible for Desserts, Tawa subzi, corn tikki and Mocktail as those preparations really saved my day 🙂

Visited July 2015.

The Square – Novotel Viman Nagar, Pune

October 30, 2015 by aprajitp in Pune Restaurants and tagged Pune best buffet restaurants, Pune best five star restaurants, Viman Nagar buffet restaurants, Viman Nagar Restaurants | Leave a comment

Five star Ambience and Five Star experience !

Rating – 4.5/5

There are many five stars serving good food in and around Vimannagar however what sets this place apart is the consistent taste and impeccable service.

It’s such a lavish buffet with so many different food counters available but what I liked is that most of the items (if not all) are worthy of being served in Ala carte and I can pay for individual items for their taste and preparation. This is so refreshing to see in a buffet as otherwise items are just there to make up the numbers but not here.

There were too many items in the buffet, I have uploaded pics and tried to taste as many as I could.

I would capture the out of the ordinary items here – butter chicken, fish ginger starter, fried rice and lamb chilly, Kerala fish curry. The chicken hariyali tikka was awesome and was well spiced and very tender as how it should be.

Starters – 4/5
Main course – 4/5
Desserts – 3.5/5
Ambience and comfort – 5/5
Service and staff courtesy – 5/5

I would have given them 4/5 just on food but. 5 extra for the service and feel good factor.

The buffet pricing is at a higher side 891 plus taxes, when I went there used a Groupon for 699 AI.

Spice It – Hotel Ibis Viman Nagar, Pune

October 28, 2015 by aprajitp in Pune Restaurants and tagged Pune buffet restaurants, Viman Nagar buffet restaurants | Leave a comment

One of the worst dining experiences I had in 2014 !

Rating – 1/5

To start with if a place can go wrong with a fresh lime soda then it wouldn’t make for a suspense thriller movie material guessing about the fate of the rest of the items.

There are almost endless negatives which I can write here but I would try hard to be concise and control my emotions) :

To begin with, it’s one of the worst places I have ever visited in terms of service. These folks are almost incompetent to the core and basically don’t care about customer service at all. I am not exaggerating but I have seen better service at road side dhabas than at this useless place.

They have pissed me off so badly that its my only review with a rating of 1.

I took a Groupon for two for 1100 bucks and had the worst buffet ever. As per the information given in the groupon the buffet was supposed to have two Veg and two Non Veg starters and unlimited mocktails. For the first 30 minutes we could only see a single starter each for Veg and Non Veg and then I asked them about the remaining ones and then it took them another half an hour to get a fish and potato starter in Chinese style and appeared to be prepared in haste and absolutely pathetic.
Oh and did I forget about the unlimited mocktails?? Well you will have to first place the order and then keep reminding them every 15 minutes or so and by the time you have desserts you might have your mocktail ready if you’re lucky!
So much for the unlimited mocktails %*%*%

The rest of the buffet is very very ordinary and I think the only thing which came close to being edible was the raita. Another highlight was the number of desserts advertised in Groupon to be six and out of those six two were pineapple and watermelon.

It was absolutely a rip off for 1100 bucks. I am going to write about this bad experience to groupon as well so as their name is not maligned with this cheap place.

The Bottomline –
Please spare yourself the trouble of visiting Ibis and instead goto any tapri waala and for a fraction of the price you might discover some taste there. As for finding the taste here it’s Mission Impossible Boss!

Kebab Unlimited – Hotel Hindusthan International Viman Nagar, Pune

October 27, 2015 by aprajitp in Pune Restaurants and tagged Pune buffet restaurants, Pune rooftops, Viman Nagar buffet restaurants | Leave a comment

Decent Buffet experience with above average Ambience !

Rating – 3.5/5

The first thing that strikes about this place is a different kind of ambience as the Kebab unlimited restaurant is located on the rooftop of HHI.
To begin with in starters they now serve 3 veg and 2 non veg starters.
In veg the starters were as below:
1.Potato starter with a delicious stuffing – 4/5, in some instances the potato wasn’t fully boiled hence taking out 1 point
2. Methi Tikki – 5/5, this was the most delicious of all veg and non veg starters and had a unique taste and texture.
3. Corn stuffed starter – 2/5, this wasn’t good at all and was pretty ordinary, surprised that it was even kept as a starter in the first place.
In non veg the following starters were served:
1. Fish Tikki – 3/5, this was an OK item though my Daughter loved it.
2. Chicken Tikka – 4/5, this was roasted fine but the only downside was the marinade was not consistent on all of the chicken and was very lightly spiced to the point that I had to specifically ask them to put some more spice which they gladly obliged in the next helping.
In a nutshell the starters were above average and we would have enjoyed more if the corn starter was good as it took just one starter out of the picture.
Coming to the Main course following are my ratings:
1.Khumb Nazakat (Mushroom) – 5/5. This was the best gravy of all the items and was really well prepared.
2. Chicken Hyderabadi – 3.5/5 – Chicken was tender and this was prepared in green gravy.
3. Potato gravy – 3/5 – Taste of the gravy was good but again the potato was not fully boiled not sure what was the issue with potatoes 🙂
4. Fish gravy – 3.5/5 – This was alright and the gravy went fine with Biryani.
5. Daal Tadka – 3/5 – This was OK, nothing special about it.
6. Chicken Biryani – 4/5 – Along with the mushroom preparation this was the saving grace of main course and became my area of concentration 🙂
7. Breads – 4.5/5 – Butter Naan was well prepared and lachha paratha was awesome.
8. Mocktails – 4/5 – Lichi mocktail was good and the strawberry one was OK.
9. Desserts – 1.5/5 – These were very ordinary, the lesser I say more better it is so I am just going to list the names. Moong halwa, rice pudding (kheer), Fruit custard. Nothing noteworthy about the desserts and it was disappointing. The last time I was there the Shahi Tukda was excellent but unfortunately it wasn’t there in the buffet so missed out on that ):

Ambience and comfort – 5/5

Service – 3.5/5 – Overall it was courteous though on more than a couple of occasions I had to remind them about my starters order and had to ask for their attention while the restaurant was only half occupied at that time.

To sum up, the experience was a mixed bag and above average but with a little more attention to the preparations it could have been much better.