For a city which loves its food spicy, Hyderabad has surprisingly a few restaurants that serve Mexican food, also known for its lavish use of red chillies and jalapeno peppers. While Novotel’s La Cantina is a Mexican specialty restaurant, places like Indijoe, TGIF and Cream Centre do offer a few dishes from the country and nachos are popular munchies even in smaller pubs and cafés. Mexitaly promises a uniquely Mexican menu with a few Italian dishes thrown in for those who want to go the safe way.
The ambience is minimalistic; packing wood is used innovatively to make up most of the interiors. As you walk into the restaurant, the first thing you notice will be the use of straw hats — lining the wall at the entrance and inside and hanging from ceilings, doubling up as lampshades, presumably to allude to the traditional Mexican sombrero. Located in Banjara Hills, not far from Cinemax, Mexitaly is the new addition to the set of restaurants at Levels.
The meal begins with a complimentary portion of garlic breadsticks with an array of dips including spinach and cheese sauce, two kinds of salsa – one much spicier than the other and a corn salsa. Those who enjoy soup can give the hearty vegetable and red bean soup a try. There are a lot of appetizers to choose from; stuffed jalapenos, tostadas a crisp tortilla with vegetarian or non vegetarian toppings, taco, nachos and chicken quesadillas or soft tortillas stuffed with chicken. Similar to the Indian roti, the Mexican tortilla, made of wheat flour is used in a variety of dishes. The specials include Burritos, a tortilla wrapped to enclose a combination of meat, rice, red beans, cheese and lettuce, served with salsa and sour cream. The deep fried version of a Burrito, the Chimichanga is also available on the menu. . One wonders if the menu could have been far more extensive to include dishes like Churros, Tamales and Flautas.
Apart from the Mexican fare, the menu also includes a selection of soups including a garlic, tomato and basil soup and the classic minestrone along with a wide variety of pastas, sandwiches and burgers to choose from.