Rated: Good
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Mar 05, 2008
Worth a try
I am not a big fan of south Indian food, and probably cannot tell the difference between an Authentic South Indian dish and a 'bastardized' version.
However, one of the friends was visiting from Switzerland and he leads a Satwik life. So he invited me to dinner at Saravan Bhavan. We were there for dinner and place was pretty crowded, however this guy I was with is a big south Indian fan and spends a lot of time in South India. He said that he had his lunch at this place the same day, and he found that the food was different from South, he found it more according to the North Indian food habits.
Anyways, we ordered our thalis ( Rs.98 + VAT each), there were three option, you can have six pooris OR 3 pooris and rice OR only rice. I decided to take the middle path, and was surprised to see so many items in the thali, probably I cannot even tell what was what, except for the raida, curd, sambhar, sweet halwa, coconut chutney and Rasam.
To say the least, the food was amazing and thali was quite filling for a person for a big appetite like mine. All the things tasted very good.
However I am not giving it higher rating, because I don't know anything about Authentic south Indian food and the person who knows better then me says its different.
Secondly and more importantly, its not a place where you can have a conversation, after having our food we were talking and waiters were looking at us like hounds. In fact we didn't ask for the bill, and they asked if we needed something else, we said no and bang the bill was there on our table. Before that my friend wanted plain soda and waiter simply said that they do not have Soda, I pointed out that they have Sweet Lime Soda on the menu and they can simply not add the lime and Sugar and give the plain Soda instead, however he said that they will give lime, sugar syrup separately from the soda, so eventually we ordered that and had to leave other things in waste.
Food might be good, however with this kind of rudeness it can only be classified as a run of the mill place, which has the prices of a restaurant and service standards of a road side Dhaba. Infact I wouldn't have bothered if this would have happened at a roadside Dhaba, because over there we only go for the food and not excellent service and ambiance.
But yes a definite recommendation, if you are looking for a upmarket, pricey, South Indian 'Dhaba'.
PS : By the way, the filter coffee was very good even tough I was not expecting anything less for Rs.28 ;-)