Royal flavour revived

Believe in reincarnations? If you don't, trace the fortunes of an old restaurant, Nizam, in the Amaravathi complex near the Music Academy. Obviously, the restaurant met with an untimely end. At first, it functioned out of the Amaravathi, the Andhra restaurant of the group. Every night, the hot spicy Andhra Bhojan would disappear and out would come the Hyderabadi fare. Later, the management decided to give it a place of its own and thus Nizam joined the cluster of joints that cram the complex. Alas! What can one say, except life is short.

That was the sad story of Nizam. Romallee is a new member of the Amaravathi club. It is nothing but the front portion of the compound fenced off to create an open-air restaurant. If you can tolerate the incessant sound of traffic as background music when you chomp on Tandoori chicken, this is the place for you.

All that separates you from the pavement of the Cathedral Road is a wall. The deja vu hit me when I went through the menu. The items listed were familiar, except a few like Tandoori chicken or the Gobi 65. A friendly chat with the waiter confirmed my suspicions. Yes, Romallee rose from the ashes of the Nizam.

As we were patrons of Nizam, the starter choice fell on Tandoori chicken (one half costs Rs. 80) and Gobi 65 (Rs. 50). The chicken didn't have much going for it as most of its life force was sucked out by tandoor. The batter-fried cauliflower sprinkled with chaat masala was tasty.

The rest of our dinner was a reminder of the Nizam menu. Black dal, Mutton dopiaza, Roomali roti (what's the fun if you don't have it when you come to Romallee?) and Lukmi. When two wedges of a batura are cut and fried, they become Lukmi and can be priced at Rs. 22 and eight or nine small gobi florets can cost Rs. 50.

Dopiaza is one of those curries that is flexible. Legend has it that the curry was the creation of a nobleman and his cook in the times of Akbar. No visitor to his house was allowed to leave without tasting his bounteous hospitality. But this posed problems for the cook. So each time when an unexpected guest dropped in, the master would clap his hands twice so that two extra onions could be added to the meat to give it more body. One day, too many visitors came unannounced and the master kept clapping his hands, in the process driving the cook's blood pressure as well as the onion content high. The story has a happy ending. Not only did the cook keep his job, he even created a signature dish!

Another version traces the curry to Awadh and nawabs, but the two-onion part of it is the same as the first story. You know how it is to get a good thing going and there will be many to take the credit. The Romalles Mutton dopiaza (Rs. 48) had capsicum in it, but it didn't really intrude into or take away the onion flavour. The Hyderabadi chicken biriyani (Rs. 55) was delicious.

The desserts were the traditional Qubani ka meetha and Double ka meetha (Rs. 45 each). The portions were generous. Sometimes, even when your stomach is full, a sense of dissatisfaction lingers on. Dining at Romallee was one such instance.

MARIEN MATHEW

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