Hyderabad food guide: New menus, cafés and pop-ups to try this weekend

Discover options to dine in Hyderabad this weekend

From new menus that showcase regional flavours to month-long food fests celebrating Burmese cuisine, and even sipping your favourite coffee at a new address, this could be your weekend dining plan.

At Mekong in Marigold, Hyderabad, Burmese cuisine takes centre stage at a month-long food festival. The concise, no-fuss menu strikes a balance between vegetarian and non-vegetarian options.

I began with a prawn and tomato cold salad — tangy, with the sharpness of fresh red onions, while the prawns and tomatoes lend a soft bite. I skipped the khow suey and mohinga and moved on to starters: chilli brinjal, Burmese chilli chicken and pork belly.

For the mains, the coconut rice, made with fragrant sticky rice (not jasmine), paired well with the Burmese chicken curry, hitting that home-style note. The rice also works well with the chilli chicken or pork if you prefer to skip gravies. The chicken curry itself is light, soupy and fragrant, almost reminiscent of a Malaysian curry.

There is also a raw mango prawn curry on the menu, but I opted for the Burmese fish cake, which carries an intense lemongrass aroma. It is a dry dish, best paired with rice if you are also ordering a gravy.

For dessert, the coconut-sago featuring pearls of sago in sweet coconut milk, topped with tender coconut shavings and black rice for a nutty texture, is unmissable.