Latest Reviews
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We got Togo poori and it is completely burnt and hard.we Could not eat and my daughter slept hungry . I'LL never order from there again. don't go ther…
Amrapali Gannamaneni
Saravana Bhavan
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This used to be my go to South Indian place in the bay area. However on my last visit recently I am sorry to say it has lowered standards across quite…
Dave A.
Saravana Bhavan
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I know this is mostly a South-Indian restaurant, but the chole bhature here is amazing!! All in all the food is good, only wish they did keep the plac…
Harsh Modi
Saravana Bhavan
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Saravana Bhavan is open for Casual Dining. Saravana Bhavan serves Indian dishes. Incorrect or missing information? Make a report, or claim the restaurant if you own it!Details
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10 Reviews on “Saravana Bhavan”
We were there for lunch, after a thirty plus minutes wait we were seated. Had Masala dosa, rava dosa,poori and rasa vada. Dosas were average; rasa vada and poori were good, their sizes have become tiny though. Nothing special about the food. Not sure why so much craze for this chain despite so many scandals. This place is no longer good as it used to be. Service is bad and cleanliness is pathetic.
I have been here last year… We were pass through by silicon valley and I was just searching for good restaurant and all of sudden found Saravana Bhavan…Very nice Authentic South Indian food…You will find same taste everywhere in any of the Saravana Bhavan including India…Must try restaurant and for me, its always on the top for South Indian food…
I have been to this place before and now visited again with some colleagues. I must say the place has become quite rundown.The first thing that gets to you is the service. It is abysmal and really should improve much. It has gone down a notch from my past visit. 1. The Waiter took more than 5 minutes to bring the menu card2. The waiter goes back and comes in 30 seconds to take the order. You cannot expect someone to take a decision this fast if the menu card runs two pages with 50 items.And conveniently forgets to come back for an order for the next 15 minutes.3. The food is good and is brought to our table within 5-10 minutes of order.4. The mini idly sambar is given without coconut chutney (we expect you to give chutney as that is how it should be served if you want consider yourself authentic South Indian)5. The adai avial, poori, dosa, mango lassi were all great6. The waiter brings the bill to the table but refuses to take the payment at our table, instead asks us to go to the counter and pay the bill. He did not do it with another guest so why the discrimination?Overall, this restaurant has become much worse compared to my earlier visits. I have given an average just because the taste of food is good and averages out the rest of the bad parts.
If you like dosa and idli, you can visit this place. I have been there only once and I believe the music was way too loud. However, this place seems to be very popular since it was filled with people when I went. Their dosa and idli are reasonable in taste and madras coffee is really good. They have a huge variety of south indian curries, and thalis so if you are looking for some good south indian food then you should try this place out.
Decent but underperforming. Sravana bhavan serves vegetarian food from south india – mostly the hindu cuisine of tamil nadu. It is a delicious but minimalist cuisine based on lentils, grains, vegetables and herbs. As you can imagine, with these foundations the food is critically dependent on freshness of herbs and vegetables as well as fresh preparation. This is why you see indian ladies (and families) poking and prodding tomatoes and eggplants at farmers markets – as we say in indian english, everything must be ekdam fresh-fresh. While Sravana Bhavan makes a reasonable effort to make freshly prepared food, unfortunately the ingredients are indistinguished and some have the definite feeling of being refrigerated. Coconut chuntney is bland and underwhelming – which is shocker in this cuisine. The Masala Dosa, while nicely presented, had a filling which lacked flavor – either the vegetables were purchased a day or two ago – or the filling was cooked earlier and refrigerated. The tomato chutney had the constituency of ketchup (maybe it was ketchup??). The vadas while freshly cooked and piping hot had internals which lacked zing and had a strangely doughy taste. In their defense, my guess is that they lack adequate volume to shop veggies everyday and prepare everything just before dinner time. Maybe they need to limit the number of choices available on the menu?
Good food, bad service!! Waiters in chennai branches and other cities in India are much much better, atleast they will greet you with a smile … If you want quality saravana-bhavan-style food, please learn from someone and cook it yourself or visit a friend who’ll cook that for you… Anyone interested, my wife and I can cook the similar way.. Just message us…
I’m a fan of pretty much any restaurant that can turn out a tasty bread product the size of a duvet cover, so really, Saravana Bhavan had me from the get-go. I’ve eaten here twice now. Once for lunch and once for dinner. Both meals consisted of eating way more food than I should have because I just couldn’t stop myself. the Adai Avial convinced me that I definitely need to go to Kerala at some point in my life. The lentil pancakes were so good, and the coconut based sauce that comes with them is indeed enhanced by the little crumbles of jaggery that come on the side. My only complaint was that I managed to get a mouth full of something rather fiberous that no amount of chewing would fix. Couldn’t tell if it was okra, or something else. But the flavors were so good, I didn’t really care. We also had something delivered that we didn’t order. I’m pretty well versed in Indian food for a soda sucking white girl, however, I never was able to figure out what it was from the limited menu descriptions, although it might have been kichiri of some kind, it was a rice-based dish that looked like mashed potatos that came in a large lump in the middle of the Thali without any bread product accompanying it. It came with a tangy sweet lime pickle that was so yummerific I thought about asking to be left along with a vat of it . I wish I knew what it was, I’d order it again! If you read this and can figure it out, please! for the love of all that is tasty message me and let me know! we ordered the bagalabath, a rice stew like dish. It was tasty, but not as tasty as the avail, or the as-yet-unnamed mystery dish. Then came the Saravana special Dosa. OMG! Somewhere there is a crepe loving god who smiled down on whoever was cooking. It was lovely, and tender with edges that were crisp, fragile and flavorful. The spiced potato mixture in the middle doing the happy dance with a few fresh jalapenos was bliss! On the second visit, armed with a larger number of diners we got the kara dosa, spicalicious yumtastic! If it was possible, this dosa had an even deeper thin crispy edge and maintained it’s integrity until we got to the very saucy middle. We had started with the rasam, a hot, slightly sour lentil based soup with a lovely offset of cilantro. We also got an onion tomato Utthapam, that was fantastic. The Channa Batura was the bread shaped duvet cover in question. The channa was very good, coupled with the large batura it totally rocked. It was hard to say what was outstanding and what wasn’t (although the plaintain appetizer we had was so-so) but one thing lingered on in my brain and is, even now, luring me with its siren call. The Kaima Idli was incredible. Fried Idli dumpling folded into a tomato based sauce that just sung. We ordered take-out to take home to G-bean, and even with the added dish it came out to $13 a person for all of that food, plus several sodas and a mango juice.Service was ok, food arrived in a haphazard manner, but that was fine because we were all sharing anyway.Looking forward to trying their extensive selection of sweets on a future visit.We’ll be back very very soon and very very often.