Urban Kitchen
Overall
3.5/5
Ambiance
4.5/5
Food
3.5/5
Service
3.5/5
A brand newbie in my home ground - Miyapur named Urban Kitchen opened in one of the most prime location of Miyapur but yet little heard about. This used to be or rather even now one of the regular functional hall for locals and this by itself was a landmark. First thing that striked me when I visisted this place is that not many locals would notice this change. I guess that's exactly the problem and my intution was right and spot on after I talked to their Manager of operations Mr. Venugopal on the public awareness of their launch. This place to be frank I had zero hope of impressing me but when my foodie friend Anusha gave a good word, I said its in my home ground, why not tick it off and call it a day. Did it fare just a tick or not? Lets see.
Ambience & Decor:
On entrance, I saw a huge parking lot and ample valet parking facility and that by itself is a big breather for mainly family crowd. Once I entered and I looked up - one word - WOW. I mean this is not a fine dining spot and you are not going to envision a brand like in banjara hills or jubilee hills, but if you are in miyapur and you are a foodie, you know what I mean. These guys have thought this through and done 100% justice on their homework. The place and the spacious decor speaks volumes of the thought and ideas. Simple and quite yellow themed, ample lighting, nice cute artistry pieces in between, intelligent use of window frames as separators, nice artistic mini cycles, lamps, veggie molds hanging all around, beautiful lamp shades and mainly of all perfect A/C seating hall.THEY HAVE GOT IT DONE RIGHT AND PERFECT - HALF JOB WELL DONE.
Food:
Their menu is super elaborate and have continental, chinese/thai, north indain and south indian and almost has everything any local of miyapur or neighbouring residant wants or needs.
Blue Angel (mocktail) - Decent one.All mocktails are priced 200 which is way too much for this locality. MUST REVIEW - 3.5/5
Murgh Malai Kebab - Nicely cooked chicken and superb spread of malai on it. could have been more hot - 4/5
Drums of Heaven - nothing but our traditional chicken drumsticks. Quanitty is only 6 pax and priced again 250 which is almost a crime :) either increase quantity or reduce price - 4/5
Chilli Honey Potato - My regular order for my kids and they cleaned up the plate . Enough said - 4/5
Chicken Dum Biryani - Quanitty huge. 3 big pieces in a big pot and rice was perfectly cooked. two things made it less perfect. too much elachi flavor and aroma and rice was under spiced - double masala would have done the magic - 3/5
Ragi Sangatti - I love when menu shows this item and very few people impress me on this. Expectations fell flat when they served it in a bowl of poridge form. They got it all wrong but even after try to fix it, they came close to flavors but presentation down south - 2.5/5
Guthi Vankaya - The curry was perfect quantity, a bit salty and highly spiced but the brinjal was perfectly cooked and the overal dish was very good and satisfying - 4/5
Double Ka Meetha - You know this dessert looks as siple but very few places perfect it and others fall miserably in the attempt. This one was well above average and was indeed nicely flavored that my kid loved it - 3.5/5
Service & Hospitality:
Mr. Venugopal (Operations head Manager) and his crew are infact very poilte and attentive and very coureous. Only being a new place, they need or lag which is the need of the hour is fluency with their menu and indeed some telugu speaking crew as the locality demands the same :) They are smiling and more than enought but more training and fine tuning would do 100% spot on.
Key Points/Improvement Areas:
1) Mocktails are all 200 which is for this area sort of crime, need to revisit it. Quality of taste doesnt do justice.
2) Spices in all dishes were good but need to get tuned big time. Nothing was terribly bad but has potential to WOW the locals.
3) Menu is very confusing and not your traditional soups - starters - main course - desserts. I think they confused it to categorize by cuisine and that has led it to go in all directions. Quality and coverage of dishes and cuisines is more than needed for Miyapur but ordering was a messy part. Need to revisit.
4) Ambiance and Decor is spot on, nothing to do anything on it, but compliemnt the perfection with some signature dishes.
5) Finally, pricing is uneven most of their starters are priced more than main courses which is no way convincing and if they revisit that to reduce it or increase the quanittiy, customers pertaining to this area might not like it or even prefer it.
Verdict:
Urban Kitchen , mainly because it is in miyapur which never impresses me in terms of food except very few places was a compelte surprise package to me and I surely think they got the right tools but are in mid way of perfecting the execution. I think they need to work the pricing / marketing strategy / public communications and of course little bit fine tuning on the spices and consistency and I know this place would make a huge impact on this area and you get a regular customer already in me. I will definitely be recommending this place if its in my area. Wish you all the very best for a superb future ahead.