I’ve written about Cinnamon Fusion before, so this won’t be a full review. Head over to my earlier post to read why I hold Cinnamon Fusion as one of the best restaurants in the city. Unlike many other well reviewed restaurants that never managed to find a dedicated clientèle, Cinnamon Fusion has managed to find its niche. The tastefully decorated restaurant often gets fully booked during its weekend musical nights. However, over the past month it has launched several new products to cater to a wider audience.
The first of them is a packed lunch service for all the corporates in and around the area. Jaideep provided me a few lunch boxes for review. The food was packed very neatly in a partitioned plastic tray, and plastic cutlery was also included. There were nine 7 partitions containing salad, an oriental chicken starter, dal makhni, paneer curry, chicken curry, gulab jamun, and curd. Both rice and roti were provided. The chicken starter and curry were decent, but the paneer curry and the dal makhni were splendid. Cinnamon Fusion is one of the very few restaurants in Hyderabad to serve soft and tender paneer. I felt that the quality of food in each plate was on the higher side, but I’m routinely amazed by the quantity of Biryani that Hyderabadis devour in a single meal. Another concern is that even though the food is delicious, I wouldn’t be wanting to eat such heavy meals on a daily basis. I would be more interested in a light-weight lunch with grilled and steamed delicacies. The veg plate is priced at Rs. 179, while the non-veg plate is priced at Rs. 199. This includes delivery and packing charges. If you were to order the non-veg plate daily, it’ll set you back by over four thousand bucks every month.
The second new offering from Cinnamon Fusion is a Friday special lunch buffet. To appeal to a wider audience, and especially the corporates looking to have a team lunch, CF is moving away from its core offering of an exquisite six course fine dining experience. The buffet includes a significantly larger spread that offers a mix of Indian, Oriental, and Continental cuisines. I tried the inaugural buffet today, and came away very impressed with both the quality and the quantity of food on offer. I started off with a little bit of both the soups on offer, including the creative Tomato Chocolate Soup. From the salads section, which featured over half a dozen variations, I tried the Caesar salad, which was also done very well. However, it was the starters that really impressed me. The vegetarian starters, which boasted of crafty preparations such veg sheek kebab, were brilliant. The non-veg starters included Pollo Cajun, Lehsooni Kebab, Chicken Drumsticks, and Tawa Pomphret. The main course was predominantly Indian with several gravies along with Naan and Navratan Pulao. On the continental side of things we had the unique Haleem Pizza, Pasta, and SeaFood Stroganoff. The customary noodles were also there in the buffet. The haleem pizza in particular deserves a special mention. The thin crust pizza was done just right. Crispy yet not dry, with oodles of cheese, and layer of delicious haleem trapped in between. The desserts counter had three variations of mousse, custard, fruits, ice cream, gulab jamun, and angoori gulab jamun. None of the items I tried were bad, but quite a few were indeed brilliant. In spite of having a packed house the service was exemplary.
I still prefer Cinnamon Fusion’s set meal and a la carte, but the buffet will undoubtedly be more popular. The buffet costs Rs. 456 inclusive of taxes, which makes it one of the best buffets available in the sub five hundred price bucket. The only thing that I didn’t like was being charged Rs. 40 + taxes for mineral water that we didn’t ask for.
