SaravanaBhavan, Pondy Bazaar, Chennai

Saravana Bhavan (SB) is a very popular chain of restaurants in TN...is quite world famous, really.  One of the best chains serving delctable South Indian veg cuisine.

Over the years they have branched into other popular Indian cuisines such as Indian Chinese, north Indian meals and tiffin items, sweets and savouries and so on (all veg).  However, in my opinion, if you step into a Saravana Bhavan, where ever it is, you have to eat either a plate of idly,  vadai, pongal or dosai (plenty of varieties of dosai).

I had a plate of idly vadai {idly was steaming hot and is always served with 3 chutneys - coconut, coriander and onion&tomato - (sauces), some chilli powder mixed with sesame oil and a cup of hot onion sambar (shallots and pulses); the vadai was nice and crisp and goes very well with the sambar}, followed by some aapam with coconut milk (aapam is a pancake made with fermented batter - allowed to steam on a pan, made without oil and can be eaten like dosai with similar accompaniments - but I feel the slightly sweetened coconut milk goes best with the slightly sour aapam).  This was followed by a plain dosai (thin rice pancakes - served again with 2 chutneys and sambar).  All this was washed down with some unsweetened fresh orange juice.

There is this clever pricing for juices - if you order a juice without ice, it is costlier than the one served with ice - this is because the volume of ice is replaced with more fresh juice.  There are a number of unique things about SB - but I shall leave that for a later blog.

While the food was excellent and the place neat and clean as was expected, the service (especially the people taking orders) was a bit lax (as is again to be expected in any SB).

This outlet (airconditioned) is one of the more expensive outlets of SB - with breakfast for 3 people coming to INR400/-.

If you like food eat South Indian food at an SB outlet in Tamil Nadu (i understand from some friends that the taste of food @ some of their international outlets is not as good as it is in Chennai).