Good news, sizzler lovers. Ohri’s 100 Degrees is back! A little over a year and a half after original outlet was shuttered, Ohri’s has brought back the old favourite at a new location with a new menu. 100 Degrees now occupies the ground floor of the Ohri’s complex opposite of Cyber Towers and serves pizza, pasta, wings, and mocktails along with sizzlers.
A few days back, I was invited to a tasting session where I had the opportunity to sample a wide selection of dishes from the menu. The restaurant has a distinctively American decor, with waiters donning cowboy hats and jeans. We also had wonderful live music through the night, but the volume was a tad too high for a restaurant and often got in the way of conversation.
We started off with 100 Degree nachos, which are tortilla chips doused in cheddar cheese. The nachos were really good, but the dish felt flat. The salsa was tepid, and some more sour cream, or perhaps even a bit of guacamole could have helped. Next up were the wings. 100 degrees offers six flavours which are labelled as 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 degrees respectively (in increasing order of heat). All the flavours were decent, and Ohri’s repertoire of wings alone is enough to warrant a visit. My favourite were the second and third ones which were Classic BBQ and Buffalo Wings. The Spicy Pepper Wings (60 degrees) left my mouth on fire but also had me craving for more. The hotter flavours weren’t particularly impressive as they sacrificed flavour in search of heat.
100 Degrees also has an interesting selection of mocktails, including several desi ones that are served in matkas. My favourite were the Chatka Orange and the Peach Tea. 100 Degrees also serves a rather neat cold coffee.
We also tried a few pizza and pasta. The pizzas were universally disappointing, but the Margherita turned out to be the worst of the lot thanks to an undercooked base. The 100 Degree BBQ pasta is an interesting creation that uses a smokey, BBQ sauce. The spicy and smokey BBQ flavour is something that I’ve never tried before with pasta and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it worked quite well.
Finally, it was time for the star of the night – the sizzlers. Each of us on the table picked a sizzler, which gave us a chance to try out quite a few of the options. I’m a fan of red meat in my sizzler. Since there wasn’t any beef on offer, I settled for the Mutton Chops. The mutton in the dish was cooked beautifully, which meant that 100 degrees had half the job done. Unfortunately, the pepper sauce didn’t have enough in it to make the dish really shine. The Coriander Fish suffered from the opposite problem. The sauce was great – coriander and garlic worked wonderfully well together, but fish didn’t quite work in the sizzler. The best sizzler of the night was the Prawns Sizzler. Here both the sauce and the protein worked. The 100 Degrees Chicken Steak Sizzler impressed thanks to the delightful mushroom sauce. The Hokkaido Chicken sizzler with cheese and spinach stuffed Chicken breasts is another decent option for Chicken lovers.
We finished off our meal some Sizzling Walnut Brownie and Classic Apple Pie. The sizzling brownie was decent but was a bit too burnt. The cinnamon flavoured Apple pie was the perfect comfort food to finish off a rather heavy meal.
While the pastas and pizzas disappointed, the good news is that 100 Degrees serves some pretty decent sizzlers. Although, the sizzler’s aren’t in the same league as what I’ve had at Kobe’s, they are amongst the best that you’d get in Hyderabad.
