We love Indian food. I spend hours talking with my Indian colleagues about the various restaurants around town. Pure Veg food is generally our main concern and my wife and I rotate our Indian meals between Woodlands, Sangeethas, Smrat and Branto. While walking along Ashley Road, we stumbled upon the newly opened Saravanaa Bhavan. We were very pleased, as we saw it in Singapore, but were unable to try it then.
We went in and were seated right away. We checked out the menu and noticed that, as this is a Chennai chain, there were many different dishes than are on offer at the other places (which tend to be Mumbai-style).
We ordered the Mysore bonda, a milagaipodi dosa, a thali and two masala chai.
The Mysore bonda were very good. They are fried lentil breads served with awesome chutneys. They were laced with fresh green chilies and tasted very good.
Next came the dosa. The dosa contained dry spices and seasame seeds and was very good. The texture was crispy and soft inside. Again, the sambar and chutneys were good.
The thali was great. The chapatis were very well made and had enough strength to easily pick up the other dishes. The hero of the thali was the beetroot dish. The staff, while friendly, actually couldn't tell us the name of the dish, but it was great.
After we had stuffed ourselves to bursting, we had two cups of masala chai. It was a little on the weak side and we wouldn't bother with that again, but the rest of the meal was great.
We will be adding Saravanaa Bhavan to our list and returning in the future.