Ready to eat Hyderabadi Mutton Biryani & Chicken Chettinad from Kitchens of India ( a brand owned by ITC ) - A review

A few months back we had visited ITC Grand, Mumbai and very impressed with the quality of food and service we got there. We went for Sunday buffet lunch which cost 1250/ head. Once again I would stress that each item in the menu was served with utmost quality , promptness and courtesy.

With that experience in mind we bought ready to eat Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani & Chettinad Chicken ( from Kitchens of India, a brand owned by ITC ). This cost Rs105/ each and pack weighs 300 g & 285 g respectively. We followed all the instructions as given in the packet while heating the product. Once the packet was opened after reheating we found to our utter disappointment that the end product has no relation whatsoever with the quality displayed / conveyed by the packing.

Chicken Chettinad

This is the description mentioned on the packet - Chunks of chicken in a paste of curry leaves and ground pepper. A gourmet, ready - to - eat signature dish created by Master Che of ITC Hotels ( Dakshin Cuisine )

Chicken Chettinad was tasting and overdose of lime juice. We live in Chennai and had been to many Chettinad restaurants but are yet to come across a Chettinad Chicken curry with an overdose of curry leaves paste and lemon juice ( these ingredients are listed on the packet also ). While the photo shown on the packet displays the chicken curry rich in chicken pieces, what you get inside is predominantly gravy with very little chicken cubes in it. See the photo above.

Hyderabadi Mutton Biryani

This is the description mentioned on the packet - Delicious mutton pieces cooked to perfection with cinnamon flavored Basmati Rice form this. Nawabi extravaganza. a gourmet, ready - to - eat dish created by the Master Chef of ITC Hotels ( Dum Pukht Cuisine ).

Here also, the contents inside the packet bear no resemblance with photo shown on the packet. For eg photo of biryani on the packet is shown richly sprinkled with all the spices. But you can hardly find any spice once you opened the content. Also the rice was only partially cooked ( see the photo above – normally in biryani, the rice is not fully cooked, but in this case, the rice was far below the optimum cooking required for biryani ) . The mutton pieces were also partially cooked and absolutely tasteless. One positive thing is it had a sprinkling of saffron.

Quantity wise this combo is not even sufficient for a single person.

All in all it was a total let down.

In my opinion any neighborhood restaurant should be offering a much better quality and taste at a much reasonable price than what is offered by Kitchens of India. My little advice is that one should go for pre pack or ready to cook meal only if there is no other alternate meal option available.