The Park, Hyderabad - Pretty but shallow

This post is going to be longish and quite detailed so read at your own risk.

When Chopi came visiting last month from Bangalore we went to The Park for drinks and dinner.

We went to Aqua for drinks and were told it's about to shut (this at 10:00 PM). A little cajoling later they finally agreed to seat us and serve us - but one drink only. We sat, ordered, and requested for another round of beers. The steward declined but a few minutes later we saw him take and serve an order at a table right in front of us.

That kind of set the mood for the rest of the evening. Some time later, we were told to pay Rs 3400 without a bill being presented to us. Apparently there was a problem with the bill printer. We said we'd wait. Less than five minutes later we were presented a bill that was about Rs 500 less. I still can't believe this happened. A wrong bill i can understand but a verbal bill - that's a little too weird.

[i asked for a bill print because i have worked in retails and printer not working is a standard excuse the staff makes to either charge more or pocket the money.]

We then headed to Carbon for more drinks - which was still open at 10:45. We ordered an Andhra-style paneer snack that was yummy. All in all a good experience here.

The boys by now had decided to go to Al-hamdulillah for kebabs so i decided to eat at Verandah where  one portion of dal makhani and 2 rotis took 45 minutes to arrive. [The dal was definitely good, though.]

We left at about 1:30, dazzled by the beautiful interiors, a few thousands poorer and a lot wiser.