Chutneys Vegetarian, Southern Indian Dive in The Village Center at Dulles - Herndon

[DonRocks]

I was driving in unfamiliar territory today, and decided I'd go random ethnic. It's too bad I did, because there's apparently this website called donrockwell.com that has favorably reviewed a restaurant called Hyderabadi Biryani Corner which I literally walked right by, looked at the menu, and then continued two doors down to Chutneys Vegetarian. It was biryani versus dosa, and I was in the mood for healthy and vegetarian, so I went to Chutneys.

Let me come right out and say that this place is a *dive*, and if you have any problems with perceived hygiene in restaurants, this is not the place for you (I suspect some of our members have been here before, and will confirm my claim). However, it had a standard, if small, menu of Southern Indian specialties, including numerous types of dosa. It's been months since I've been to Woodlands, and the thought of a wheat-based dosa really appealed to me.

I had just gotten some cardio, so a Mango Lassi ($1.99) went down like amrit (oops, wrong part of the country). And I got my standard dosa which I invariably get at Woodlands, the Rava Onion Masala Dosa ($7.49). The good news: the cook is a girl on a flat-top grill, and she made the dosa about as well as she could have made it - the crèpe itself was perfect, it was huge, and it looked just right from the outside. The bad news: the three chutneys it came with got a fingertip-dip only, and the sambar tasted like it came straight out of a can. There's more bad news: the inside of the dosa was *laden* with green chilis - too many, and I'm just not used to this many Scoville heat units; the turmeric potatoes, however, were fine, and there were lots of them - it was a huge dosa, both inside and out.

For whatever reason, the bill was only $9 (the minimum amount for Visa is $10, but they let me use it anyway so I left a generous tip). You know, if you're in Herndon, and you're dying for Southern Indian, I'm not going to tell you to drive to Fairfax for Woodlands, but I will finish by saying that I kept a close eye throughout my meal for any unwelcome "visitors" (there were none), but my goodness this place is dirty - I would not have ordered anything meat-based.

I tagged this thread "Hindu Catering" because the menu literally says, "We cater for Hindu religious and social events."