Almond flour pancake garnished with flavoured homemade butter, carrot cake pie, and date-cocoa-nuts squares; these are sugar-free desserts that will not take you on a guilt trip. Zen bowls, a cafe at Puppalaguda is not the average healthy cafe that dishes out lettuce leaves to make it low-cal or healthy. The venture started in Gachibowli, as a cloud kitchen delivering fresh, clean, healthy and tasty food, or “nutritionally balanced and environmentally sustainable,” specifies Keerthi Kamalakar, one of the partners at Zen Bowls. By environmentally sustainable he means they source all their raw materials from within Telangana.
Falafel platter | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Aiming to deliver a “farm-to-fork” experience, every meal is prepared using fresh ingredients harvested from ‘partner farms’, no more than 36 hours before serving. The eatery also comes with a community space that aims to host workshops and showcase smart and interesting use of ingredients to make healthy food that is tasty as well.
Outside seating at Zen Bowls | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The menu at Zen Bowls is driven by the thought ‘we are what we eat.’ Presentation, imagination and intelligent use of ingredients make all the difference. For instance, a non-veg clear soup, like a shorba, is served with healthy sourdough toast and a vegetarian pumpkin soup with a drizzle of cold-pressed coconut oil.
Almond flour pancake | Photo Credit: Prabalika M Borah
A taste of the brown rice in the rice bowl will make you want to give it a try at home, even if you are a hardcore white rice eater. Keerthi explains: “Simply adding brown rice to a salad bowl is boring. Given the texture and flavour of brown rice, it is not easy to like it. Treat and temper the rice, then see its flavours.”
Their menu also includes dishes like grilled broccoli and chicken salad, high protein breakfast, fried rice, burnt garlic mushroom bowl, turmeric oats and a savoury pancake with peanut butter. The Asian chicken bowl is a wholesome meal with teriyaki chicken, buttered rice with mushroom and broccoli, red cabbage, sesame and diced veggies. Every mouthful is flavorful and crunchy, making it a fun meal. The falafel platter on a bed of hummus makes it a fun dish to snack on.
Zen Bowls include a lot of homemade dips and dressings to enhance the flavour of dishes.
Keerthi Kamalakar, who holds certificate 4 in commercial cookery from William Angliss Institute of TAFE (Technical and Further Education), Melbourne says he went through an amazing body transformation focusing on the right foods and exercise. So he wanted to bring that understanding of a healthy diet and his knowledge to the food industry. Keerthi partners with Sandhya Esther, a postgraduate in food technology engineering and Srujan Peddapanga, a civil engineer, to offer healthy, tasty and attractive food.
Zen bowls
Address: 218, Narsingi, Puppalaguda Main road Manikonda
Table for two: ₹1200 approximately
