Sometimes its worth travelling that extra distance to get some good nosh. Tonight I went to visit Rehana, Ant and Hannah at their home near Rayners Lane. Initially we were just going to get a take away but Rehana thought it would be a good chance to go out for a meal at a local South Indian Saravanaa Bhavan. This is apparently quite a famouse chain of South Indian restaurants with restaurants all over the world. We sat down relatively early 6.30 and as we ate it just got busier and busier. By the time we’d finished there was even a bit of a queue. Rehana says that on weekends you don’t have a chance of getting a table without at least an hour’s wait.

Normally when I eat vegetarian food I sorely miss the meat but tonight I was pleasantly surprised to find I didn’t really miss it. I left the selections up to Rehana as the menu selection was vast and varied. In fact you’ll even find Chinese dishes on the menu! However we decided the South Indian selection was enough for us.

Rehana ended up selecting all sorts of things including Poori Masala, Onion, Chilli & Tomato Uthappam (very very hot!), Masala Dosa, and two curries Dingri Mutter (a mushroom and pea curry) and Baingan Masala (roasted brinjals – aubergines – and flavoured vegetable curry.) Along with this we had so may Pooris that we could even finish. At the end of the meal even though I was stuffed to the gills I decided to try a Falooda which is vermicelli topped with mixed fresh fruits, fruit jelly & garnished with cherries & topped with vanilla ice cream. Delicious but very sweet.

Overall I was quite impressed with this restaurant. The food was extremely delicious and cheap. Service was the only drawback – though generally friendly I couldn’t understand why they didn’t bring food out in the right order with what we presumed to be starters or beginning dishes coming in after our mains of curries came. Further they served everything, even two lonely onion bhajis, on giant thali plates so we quickly ran out of space at the table. Otherwise definitely a restaurant I would recommend. But I couldn’t eat it too often – despite being vegetarian I get the feeling its not particularly healthy …