[Hyderabad, May 2025] Day 5 - Braaaainz & Goodbyes

 The last day of this short whirlwind of a trip is upon me, and while I wish I had been able to see much of anything in this exciting and rapidly expanding city, I am also looking forward to going home. I am *not*, on the other hand, looking forward to the process of getting home. I typically write these blog entries about a day behind my actual experiences, so some of the next day has already occurred. As a prelude to the final entry about the return journey tomorrow, let me just say: it doesn't go all that smoothly. But that'll make reading about it much more interesting now, won't it? My suffering can be your succor.

I promised you yesterday that I managed to top my adventurous breakfast experience, the lamb trotter stew. So, I am entering a new top entry in my brave eating experiences on this trip: Bheja Fry. It already sounds a little sinister, doesn't it? 

Once again, baby animal lovers, go ahead and skip the next three paragraphs. Lamb is the most common red meat consumed in Southern India, though some communities eat buffalo, pork, and goat. Even beef is consumed by Hindus in very specific circumstances and regional traditions, though I certainly never ran into any on this trip. Despite having the lamb trotters the day before, I was still shocked when I discovered the tureen of fried lambs' brains in a masala sauce that is Hyderabad's version of this originally Muslim dish on the hotel's breakfast buffet. It's certainly not something I would expect most Westerners to throw down on. 

That little bit at the top is the brain chunk

Now, this is not the first time I've had brains (yeah, yeah, laugh it up). It's a standard filling for Mexican street tacos, and man, do I love a street taco. Brain tissue is more or less all cholesterol and is not generally something you want to make a habit of eating. Cow's brain, which is the most common type served in those street tacos, can also be a carrier for all kinds of nasties, including mad cow disease. Risky consumption is a central theme of this trip, and really one of the very few things I am prepared to take risks on in my life. (I should unpack that with a therapist at some point...) Remember the ginger bug homemade soda from a few days ago? I'm pretty sure that it was made with municipal water, which I was told not to consume due to the significant differences in the bacteria present in it compared to the bacteria my gut is used to in the US. The hotel even has a private bulk filtration system for the water it serves in the rooms and restaurants. And regarding the ginger bug, I didn't want to offend the new colleague who lovingly served it to me; he was very excited to be sharing it! I was on this trip as an ambassador from my team to theirs, after all, so I risked an immodium-filled evening (which blessedly never came to pass.)

Oh, we were talking about eating brains. Since they were fried, they had a slightly crisp exterior and the familiar creamy, fatty interior. It's a weekday Hyderabadi breakfast because it is 'healthy' and 'doesn't take much prep work', according to an internet recipe I found for it. Alongside a little bit of the bheja, I had a hearty Turkish poached egg, which was served over raita with red pepper oil. I closed out the breakfast with one last Iranian chai and some little pastries, including a lovely dragonfruit, kiwi, and custard number that was excellent. When I return to Hyderabad, I'll seek out this hotel and this buffet again, as it was a joy to stay here. The room was spacious and beautiful, every restaurant was great, the service was top-notch, and there was that breakfast buffet.

Walking through Knowledge City Business Park to lunch

My last day in the office wasn't quite so packed as the previous one, but busy nonetheless, and the most enjoyable bit was lunch! Yes, yes. More food. I went out with the project management team and finally got an opportunity to wander around the business park a bit. They took me to a "Progressive Indian" restaurant called Tevar, which specializes in modern and experimental takes on traditional dishes and plays American 'classics' like Johnny Cash and Hank Williams on repeat. 

Making Patta Chaat with dry ice frozen yogurt

My colleagues insisted on ordering everything for the table, which I was happy to let them do. They also urged me to have a cocktail, apparently getting my number early on. The quite pretty cocktail was called a 'Valley of Flowers' and featured chamomile-infused gin, 'floral milk' (?), falernum, saline, and lime. It was a fancy gimlet, and I was there for it. 

We then had an over-the-top tableside preparation of what is usually a street food, a dish called patta chaat. It is primarily spinach, or in this case kale, mixed with deep-fried bits of gram flour batter seasoned with chaat masala spice blend and topped with tamarind chutney. In the summer, it is typically served with chilled yogurt, but here they literally freeze the yogurt with dry ice for a more dramatic table-side presentation. It was tooth-shatteringly crunchy, and the spiced frozen yogurt was a pleasant new experience. I wish I could remember all the other things we ate. I'm scouring through the menu trying to find them. Obviously, they overfed me to the point of the ridiculous, but once again, I wasn't about to refuse their hospitality.

The Valley of Flowers Cocktail

Ok, I've done my research now. Here's some of the things we had: Jimikand ki Shikampuri (breaded yam patties stuffed with cheese), Nimbu Mirchi fish chunks, Tevar fried chicken, which was spicy because it's made with koora karam, a curry powder with the usual red pepper, cumin, tumeric, coriander, and garlic. My impression is that these blends are all more or less made from the same ingredients, with different ratios of each. The food just kept coming: We had ghee-roasted mutton, Lotus stem kebab with saffron malai cream, chicken kala rassa, a broad spectrum of naan, including cheese naan, garlic naan, red chili naan, roti... I seriously had to eat only one bite of each of these things to keep from passing out. They even pushed me to share some dessert, which was a coconut and jaggery creme brulee with coconut ice cream. (Please send help.)

Note the doofy-looking white guy in the back. 

At lunch and away from the office, everyone on the team was very talkative and universally hilarious. Most of them imbibed with me, including their boss, who, by company policy, paid for the whole meal. To my surprise, there was only a single vegetarian in the group. My counterpart proclaimed he was more of an anti-vegetarian, seeking out meat dishes whenever possible. There's another one of my perceptions that has shifted. I had a great time and waddled back to the office, uncomfortably full, but content.

I synced with my counterpart one last time in the afternoon before closing out my first visit to the studio and returning to the hotel to prepare to depart. I had a lot of assumptions about Indian culture altered on this trip, and some biases challenged and found wanting. I am incredibly fortunate to have been able to meet and interact with such a warm and welcoming group of people. I look forward to coming back and getting a chance to actually see some of this fascinating city beyond the business parks. There are some lovely palaces, a famous fort, and a huge statue in the middle of a man-made lake that I'd love to visit.

As a last hurrah and a show of support to the rest of the North American team members who joined this business excursion on Wednesday, we had dinner and drinks at the same Northern Indian restaurant, Peshawri, that I'd been to the first night. It was just as good the second time, but I won't dive into all the gory details (I forgot to take pictures.) Almost all of the North America team are remote, work-from-home employees, so this was the first time I'd met any of them in person. After a fun chat and a lot of kebabs, I returned one last time to my hotel room to pack up and prepare to head out, very late in the evening, to the airport.

The next post will be about that return journey. Prepare for drama. Prepare for confusion. Prepare for sprints through airports to make connections and for me bitching a lot due to the sheer willpower-breaking duration of the experience. You have been warned.