[Hyderabad, May 2025] Day 2 - Northern Indian Food & Southern Indian Hospitality

I woke up on the first day of my stay with about six hours of sleep under my belt, but ultimately feeling energized. The view from my hotel window on the 22nd floor revealed itself in the morning mist. It overlooks a lake with a cool suspension bridge and a little island surrounded by white stones. There's a little market across the busy street below. I'm not looking at the main part of the city (but I'll get a lovely view of it from the office later.)

My hotel has a free breakfast, so I took advantage of it, but man, I was not prepared. It was a big spread, and I was a little lost in the choices, not knowing what went with what or which things to focus on. By the time I'd finished my meal, I had a more precise grasp of things, but this first meal was a little disorganized.

Iranian Chai, sweet and creamy

I was told by my coworker friend in the US, who had already made this trip, that the first thing I had to do at breakfast was order an Iranian chai. It took a little time to get to me because it was clearly made fresh. Iranian chai is strongly spiced and made with condensed milk, so it's super sweet, but creamy and oh so good. You can't drink much of it due to the intensity of the sweetness, but they didn't *give* me much of it, so that was a relief. There's actually a lot of Iranian and Mughal influence in this part of India, so you get an interesting cross-section of Northern, Southern, and Middle Eastern food. 

As far as food goes, my readers know that I don't go abroad just to eat some pancakes and bacon for brekky; I want to eat local food. The first thing I spotted that I wanted to try was the fresh fruit.
Why? Because fruit, even the kinds we recognise, tend to taste different or be different varieties of the familiar. I had some plum halves, which had a nice color but were mealy, and some musk melon, which sounds exotic but is really just a melon almost identical to cantaloupe. In fact, all cantaloupes are indeed a variety of musk melon, so it may have just been a cantaloupe. Who knows. That was good, anyway. The papaya I didn't care for. Papaya is one of those fruits that is really hit and miss with me. I've had great papaya in Hawaii, for example, but this version was a testament to the flavours I *don't* like in a papaya. The mango slice I had, on the other hand, was transcendent. Sweet, complex, floral. It is way more interesting than a US supermarket mango. On the same plate, I went for masoor ki khadi dal, a Hyderabadi dish, which is a yellow lentil stew with hard-boiled eggs, and a fluffy pita bread called marar kulcha. 

No bacon and eggs today!

By now, I was full of bread and stew, and only then did I notice an entire section of the buffet I hadn't spotted -- the southern Indian area. Idli! Halva! Coconut chutney! And I, about to burst already. But hey, I'm here for three more days. Tomorrow, I'll share information about southern Indian breakfast food.

I had my counterpart on the other team meet me in the hotel lobby in the afternoon. I wanted to take it easy on the first day, just go into the office and get a brief tour, say hello to some of the team, and get a desk so I could catch up on some work. The walk to the office is not particularly pleasant and highlights the unfortunate dichotomy of progress and poverty of a modern city like this. Rapid growth means lots of construction and construction materials all over the place, and there is no good system of maintaining certain parts of the city, so trash and standing water litter the sides of the road next to where the tuktuks and taxis drop off the office workers. Nor is there a good safety system in place. In a few places, the sidewalks just sort of end in rubble, and you're forced to skirt the edge of the road, a road where the drivers are having their own sort of chaotic free-for-all. Somehow, no one gets hurt in this ballet of madness. I just tried to mirror the locals to get through the gauntlet.

Hyderabad on a clear day in May

The office, on the other hand, is super sleek, and the whole thing smells like a new car. It has a spectacular view of Hyderabad, one that reminds me a lot of being in a skyscraper in Tokyo, with the city stretching out until you can't see it from the mist in the morning. Everyone I met was incredibly gracious and friendly.

A few interesting cultural things I noticed on day one. Indians shake hands very gently, unlike us Americans, where a business handshake has turned into a display of power and dominance. It took me a second to realize I was doing it myself. I corrected my behavior after meeting a few people. 

I also observed that it is perfectly normal for male friends to hold hands while walking down the street, in a show of platonic closeness and support. In fact, it's more acceptable than a man and a woman holding hands in public; PDA is considered very rude. Also considered rude: doing much of anything with your left hand, especially eating. With this taboo, there's not much I can do. My right hand is more or less a limp piece of pasta I carry around to balance out the other side of me. Trying to do anything dextrous with it typically ends in food on my lap. They clearly give foreigners some leeway when it comes to these things. No one has given me the stink-eye...yet.

I was only in the office for three or so hours. This time, I had to make the walk back solo. It didn't spook me as much as I thought it would. I returned in one piece, put my office persona back in the hotel room, and went down to the hotel bar for a pre-dinner drink or two. They offered a few craft cocktails, but there isn't much of a cocktail culture here. Alcohol isn't forbidden by most sects of Hindu, though it's not prevalent. But this hotel definitely caters to Westerners, so there are, in fact, two bars. The other is on the roof, and I intend to try it out tomorrow. The Peacock bar is in the lobby, and a (blind?) piano player was playing some clearly improvised ... new age music is really all I can call it. He played the same four chords for about half an hour, and when he was finished, frankly, I was a bit relieved. 

The Last Cocktail, which
was certainly not the last.

The first cocktail I had at the Peacock bar was called "The Last Cocktail" and was presumably a play on a Last Word, though you'd be hard-pressed to come to that conclusion yourself. It was light, citrusy, and not particularly sweet -- a far cry from the profile of a Last Word, beyond the citrus. They did not list the ingredients, but I'm sure there was cardamom and star anise in it, and probably grains of paradise as well. 

Next up, I had a simple martini with a twist, but I opted for an Indian gin called Baisalmer. Named after a city in the Thar desert, it has herbs and spices from all around India that are mostly basket-infused in a column still, then redistilled to allow it to be labeled a 'London Dry Gin'. Beyond the forward juniper flavors, there was a hint of earthiness, which means that it's likely distilled from wheat or sugar cane, or it's loaded with angelica root. Citrus and coriander control the mid palate, and some peppery notes finish it off. 

Rashemi Kebab

I was finally hungry after my massive breakfast (I ate more than I listed above, but this post was getting long. One of the restaurants in the hotel, Peshawri, specializes in North Indian rustic food, and that means tandoor ovens and kebabs. They had plenty of meat options, and had I the stomach capacity, I would have just eaten all of it, but I opted for a Rashemi kebab, made with paneer. It was served with raw red onion dusted with chaat masala, and the hotel's ubiquitous brilliant green mint chutney. I also got a type of naan called naan amal, which is fermented, so it's slightly sour. Brushed with ghee, it was a great vessel for the kebab.

My last drink of the evening was a "Five Spices", and I really liked this one. I wish I could tell you what's in it, but it was yellowish orange and tasted like cardamom and burnt cinnamon. It was definitely made with jaggery, a palm sugar that I can apparently detect the taste of at 500 yards.

I wish I could tell you I went out and explored the environment afterward, but my jet lag finally caught up with me and I passed out at 8:30pm. Tomorrow, more work, of course, and more opportunities for awesome food and fascinating people!