Praneetha is an extremely popular little hole-in-the-wall opposite the Beira Lake, that serves up rice and curry with the option of almost every kind of meat.
Ambience & Service
Right opposite Beira Lake in Kollpity, a few feet into Hudson Road, is this really tiny yellow-walled shop. Around lunch time, it’s packed to the brim, meaning there are about seven people in there.
Impossibly, on one side they’ve managed to set up a seating space. We’d recommend takeaway unless you enjoy being cloistered in a small room with hungry work folks.
On the other side is this guy and about two other staff members, marked by their surgical masks. In front of him is a delicious looking wide range of curries and meats in clay pots – basics like parippu, brinjal, gotukola, leeks, and then mutton, beef, chicken, pork, prawns, cuttlefish, different preparations of fish (ambul thiyal, miris maalu, badapu maalu, thalapath). They also had different kinds of rottis. There may have been other things too, it was too crowded for me to sit and have a chat with the maestro, who calmly but speedily took orders every two minutes before shoveling them into plates.
The Food
I asked him to put all the meats into one plate, like we did at Bath Amma’s, because YOLO, son (I really should stop saying that). Anyway, he looked at me like I was crazy and said no, because too many meats to fit into one plate.
So I settled for a plate of rice, chicken, prawns and cuttlefish, which cost around Rs. 400 – an ordinary rice and curry here is about Rs. 130 and you get charged around Rs. 100 for add-ons. This was one superb rice and curry, one of the best I’ve had – it included parippu, beans, gotukola, some tomato, and nice big portions of chicken, cuttlefish and plenty of juicy prawns. Extremely generous, and wonderfully spicy and flavoursome.
Also asked for a fish rotti for funsies – tasty, and they really lay on the chillies so this is some good dynamite.
Conclusion
Praneetha is one of those rare buth kades with such a wide selection of curries, popular among both baasunais and executives alike. The service is very fast, the food is delicious, generously portioned, and still cheap. We’d recommend.
