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Showing results for tags 'Southern Indian'.
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I needed some grounding today, so I headed to Woodlands out in Fairfax for some carryout. This is real Indian food, and I'm talking manly-man southern Indian. Not the meatly oolag you sit and nibble on with a Kingfisher and a side of A&D, but the stuff you snort down with a cup of damned tea. Look at this: $7.25 gets you a Special Rava Masala Dosa. Man oh man oh man this is awesome. Call ten minutes before you arrive because it takes them fifteen minutes to make it. Get your order, and march straight back to your car. Open the metal container. Notice the beautifully grilled crepe, a cream-of-wheat and lentil crepe, thick, honeycombed, and crunchy in parts. Green chiles are used to enhance the flavor of the potatoes and onions, not to overwhelm them. Try a few bites of everything, admire how deep and cellularly knit these flavors are. And now that we've gotten that little formality out of the way, take your entire thing of sambar, and dump it on top. Likewise your coconut chutney. Start driving home. Use the plastic spoon - not the plastic fork - that you requested. Start shoveling. I love Woodlands. Forget the buffet which is interesting but sometimes tired and picked-over. Get fresh-cooked food. Get a dosa. Get this dosa. Try this exact same dish and you'll dream about it later in the night. You'll thank yourself, and you'll come here again-and-again. Do it! And now if I could figure out what to do with this little thing of Paan I bought. What is this stuff? What do I do with it? Cheers, Rocks. -
My wife and I recently 'discovered' Udupi Palace and have been several times. Great stuff, cheap, and close enough for it to hit our rotation (we live in Laurel). Plus, the neighborhood vibe is so mixed and frothy and loaded with piles of ethnicity. Recommended. -
Andy Hayler's Review
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The next time your always-late sister causes you to have some time to kill in the Herndon area, duck into Aditi Spice Depot on Elden Street. You'll find they have fresh curry leaves (score!) and a new idli steamer to replace your tired, post-apocalyptic stage prop that has become your old device. On the way out, ask the cashier where in Herndon is worth checking out for Indian cuisine. He'll recommend, among other places, Paradise Indian which is "just up the street" (he'll point to the left). When your sister finally arrives, and you realize the restaurant she chose is not open for lunch on Sunday, it will all be OK. You'll have a backup plan just down the street (point left). Today's expansive buffet was, at $12, a flavorful bargain. Normally not a fan of the spoon-n-go method of eating, I'd return here in a heartbeat. Exceptional flavor and freshness throughout, standouts being gobhi fry (cauliflower), goat curry, coconut chutney, lime pickle, and anything with chick peas or the exceptional house-made paneer. Numerous servers kept the buffet astutely clean and rightfully filled. Unlimited 10 ounce bottles of water seemed to be included in the price of the buffet, helpful since several dishes featured deeply spicy creations. We found the service personally attentive and friendly for a buffet. Soiled plates disappeared quickly, waters replaced rapidly, and the bag of ice I requested for the cooler in my car was met with not only a smile, but with a waterproof-wrapped version reflecting exceptional care. By the time we left around 2:00, we were the only non-Indian patrons in a very packed, very satisfied patron restaurant brimming with efficiency. From Alexandria, I'm pointing up and to the left, you should go, check it out. -
I first heard about this vegetarian Indian restaurant back in April but never had an opportunity to check out the place until today. This place is located in Herndon off of Fairfax County Parkway. If you are on the toll road you can take the exit for Fairfax County Parkway. There was a steady stream of customers during lunch time. I decided to go with the masala dosas and channa bhatura. The dosa was spot on. Probably one of the better dosas I have had in the DMV. I was not that impressed by the Channa Bhatura. I think the version at Punjabi by Nature is better. If you are vegetarian or looking for something besides the usual kabob joints, I would give this place a look. Tim Carman of the Washington Post recently did a write up on the place. 1. Masala Dosa 2. Channa Bhatura
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Madras Palace probably deserves its own thread by now. Time and again we still get a hankering for some south Indian vegetarian cuisine, and MP remains our go-to. Early Sunday evening however, I was surprised that they were pushing a buffet. The dining room was still quiet at not-yet-6 PM, so we ordered off the menu instead. I don't know if they were unprepared to cook, but there seemed to be a startup lag, as the first thing to emerge was perhaps the oiliest plate of papadum I've had in a while. Not yet up to temperature, we thought, and braced for disappointment. Fortunately, things continued to improve. The only remaining glitch was that the vada in my sambar vada was a little undercooked and doughy. But the sambar here continues to be thick and rich and spicy, with only the curious omission of pieces of drumstick. I should ask about that next time. The dosai continue to be perfect every time. My paneer dosa arrived arranged in two pieces; I'd swear that they'd made it as large as a paper dosa before cutting it in half, but it was crisp and nongreasy. Gubeen's customary saag paneer was unusually good this time, perhaps the best we've had in the area in months, without having had all of the fresh spinach flavor cooked out of it. Portions were more generous than we had remembered, as well. My dosa came with another container of sambar, and the coconut chutney. Her saag came with a small dish of flavorful but slightly watery dal, and a few choice bits of pungent mango pickle. I'm a little worried when a kitchen switches into buffet-maintenance mode, but as long as they can knock out a la carte mains with consistency, we'll be back. -
Soooooo I finally made it out to Ganesh Temple's Cafeteria after wanting to go sometime. I was repurposing after finding Gui Lin Mi Fen to be under renovation or closed (the guy couldn't really explain what was going on). It was for the best though as this place was truly one of the most memorable adventures I've had in a long timmeeee. It's this nice canteen serving nice Dosas and other Indian veggie dishes out of it's cavernous complex. The place is pretty big especially compared to the slumped wooden houses that surround it. They have it all inside: the wedding hall, prayer space, the canteen and MORE!! It was almost otherworldly seeing this massive Hindu temple in the middle of a random part of Flushing. Any who the food is quite nice and while I am a bit weaker in my Indian palate (didn't grow up eating it in the way I did other cuisines like Chinese) I would rate this place very high. Not only do they have a wide variety of dishes, particularly in dosas, that often one doesn't see BUT they have a whole slew of other dishes as well to quench your indian veggie appetite. I went with the Mysore Masala Dosa which was quite delectable and had the perfect amount of spice (I do love spice and could've handled more but this spice complemented the flavors well rather then overpowering them). I also should laud the price to quality ratio. I don't think a single item (admittedly I forget some of the spelling/names so forgive me dear rockers!!) was over 7 buckaroonies which in my book is a steal for the quality of these dosas. Sooooo between the very cool visiting the temple experience and the food I would say make the trek out here!! -
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."
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I have gotten tired of North Indian cuisine and have been trying South Indian food recently. Kerala is an interesting state in India so I was happy to see a restaurant that specialized in its cuisine. The menu has a large section of Kerala dishes as well as North and South Indian options. It is clean and the staff is pleasant. They expect to get a liquor license soon. We ordered "idi appam" (string hoppers) with egg curry, Kerala chicken thoran with Kerala matta rice, and Kerala-style fish curry with basmati rice. The string hoppers have to be ordered an hour in advance so we called it in before we left the house. We asked that the level of heat be 9 on 1-10 scale. I had never had string hoppers. They were similar to the vermicelli one finds in Vietnamese spring rolls but were more delicate, fragrant with coconut. The egg curry served with it was rather mild and had lots of onions. A soothing, pleasant dish. The thoran was chicken, stir fried in spices like cinnamon, black pepper, hot pepper, and cloves, as well as with coconut and garlic/ginger. It was delicious but it would have been better if they had used chicken thighs rather than breasts, which were dry. The matta rice was brown rice supposedly good for those with diabetes. The fish curry was also delicious, tangy with tamarind, I think, and with many spices. The fish was moist and meaty. We enjoyed the restaurant. The prices were maybe $2 higher than I would have expected for the portion size but acceptable because the cuisine is uncommon. The waiter told us they have a lunch buffet with lots of Kerala dishes in addition to the standard stuff so this would be a good option for those who would like a lower cost introduction to the cuisine.
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We stopped off for dinner here last night prior to the Van Morrison show. The menu is pretty interesting. In addition to the variety of vegetarian curries, dosas, uthappams, and rice dishes, they also have an "Indo-Chinese" menu - Chinese food done Indian style. We ordered two dishes off this part of the menu - the hot and sour soup, which was thinner and less vinegary than the typical Chinese style, but with the addition of more vegetables like carrots and cauliflower and a rather large amount of chili oil; and the Gobi Manchurian, which is comparable to a General Tso's (insert ingredient here), except not as sweet or gloopy. I'm a big fan of cauliflower in general, but this was particularly good. We also tried the assorted appetizer platter (pakoras, samosa, and a couple of lentil-based donutty things which don't appear on the online menu and which I can't remember the name of), and the paneer butter masala, as well as the zeera rice (basmati with cumin and mixed vegetables). All were worth ordering again, although if you're planning to try a number of dishes I'd stay away from the lentil donut things - they're pretty filling. The dosas also look spectacular. We saw one that had to be 3 feet long being delivered to another table, which I hope was one of the ones they list on the menu as "extra long," otherwise I'm going to have to plan on fasting for a couple of days before our next visit. Saravana Palace is about a mile and a half north of Fairfax County Parkway on Rt. 29 - if you're using Google for directions, the road name it gives for the final turn is incorrect. Instead of McKenzie Dr., it should be Robinson Hall Dr.
