Hi foodies, today I’ll be doing a food review of a very popular South Indian speciality restaurant at Karanpur, Rajpur Road. They are very well known for their authenticity, serving size & focused menu.
Come, let’s take a closer look!
LOCATION
3, Astley Hall, 1st & 2nd floor, Rajpur Road, Karanpur, Dehradun, Uttarakhand 248001
The restaurant is located on the 1st floor of the arcade and is accessible by a staircase as well as by an elevator.
There is ample parking space allocated in and around the restaurant’s premises for both two-wheelers and four-wheelers alike, but the arcade area itself tends to get extremely busy & crowded, especially during the weekends, and the parking space here fills up really quickly, so please come prepared and well before time if you can.
Service Options
Dine-in – Takeaway – Delivery
Timings
Mon-Sun: 10:00AM – 11:00PM
Cuisines Offered
VEG ONLY
South Indian
Average Cost For 2 (Exclusive of Taxes & Other Charges)
Rs. 500/- approx.
Zomato Rating
Menu
Ambience
The ambiance of the restaurant was stylish, hygienic, and extremely well-maintained. They decorated and colored the restaurant very tastefully with vibrant colors and lighting, and it looked quite fantastic. They could have definitely incorporated more colors and flavors of South India into the ambiance of the restaurant to make it look even more attractive if they wanted to, but personally, I felt they did more than enough to stand out from the crowd and look distinct.
Quality Of Food (Taste, Service & Presentation)
The service was quick and efficient. All the dishes that I had ordered were prepared in good time and presented well.
The service staff was dressed in the restaurant’s designated black uniform. They were warm and courteous and were always on hand to answer any of the customer’s queries as well.
Dishes Ordered
I ordered their most famous and popular beverage, the Buttermilk, and for the main course, I ordered the Butter Masala Dosa. To finish my meal, I ordered a Filter coffee as well.
Buttermilk
First up came one of their most refreshing beverages, the buttermilk.
The Buttermilk was served almost to the brim in a stylish, tall glass, garnished with a modest amount of roasted cumin (jeera) powder and a generous amount of finely chopped coriander leaves.
The Buttermilk was really refreshing in taste and quite light on the stomach. The coriander leaves gave the drink a nice fresh taste, whereas the roasted jeera powder added a smokey flavor to it. Furthermore, there was also an underlying pungent flavor of finely chopped green chilies, which added another, delightful layer of flavor to the drink.
A great beverage to complement any meal. Highly recommended.
Butter Masala Dosa
Next up came one of their most popular main course dishes, the Butter Masala Dosa.
The dosa was served on a circular steel plate, accompanied by 3 bowls. Out of the 3 bowls, the 2 smaller bowls contained the iconic pure white coconut chutney and the red tomato and coconut chutney, whereas the slightly larger bowl contained the flavorsome sambar.
The dosa was wafer-thin in make and super crispy in texture and tasted absolutely delicious. It was stuffed with a different version of flavorful South Indian-style potato filling which did taste great but didn’t have the same authentic taste as the iconic yellow South Indian-style dosa filling which is usually seen served in most other South Indian restaurants around the country. Instead of that filling, they had provided a potato filling which was dominantly red in color, and for some reason, they had decided not to add any curry leaves to it, which took away a lot of flavors from it and totally changed the filling’s overall flavor, which was quite a pity.
Don’t get me wrong, the dosa itself was super crispy and truly delicious, and even this slightly unique potato filling tasted great, but I genuinely felt that the restaurant should have gone for a more traditional, tried-and-tested yellow potato filling, infused with lots of flavors of curry leaves & mustard seeds, to go with the crispy dosa, rather than putting their own modern spin on it.
Moving on to the accompaniments, the two coconut chutneys were super tasty, especially the pure white coconut chutney, which was absolutely divine in taste and I think I ordered 4 or 5 refills of it alone. Furthermore, the sambar, just like the coconut chutneys, tasted great. It had all the necessary elements in place which a good sambar must have, without being too heavy in texture. Together, both the chutneys, along with the flavorsome sambar, complimented the butter dosa wonderfully and made an already great dish even better.
Filter Coffee
And finally, no meal is complete in a South Indian restaurant without having a glass of their iconic filter coffee, hence I ordered one.
The filter coffee came full to the brim in a small steel glass, with the glass itself placed inside a small steel bowl. This serve-ware is also commonly referred to as a tumbler in South India.
The filter coffee tasted really nice and acted as a great way to end our meal at this restaurant. It was quite milky in texture, had adequate sweetness, and had a nice, aromatic flavor of coffee running through it.
[More to follow…]
To Eat or Not?
To Eat, absolutely.
With their delicious food, focused menu, relatively modest pricing, and courteous service staff, they are most definitely one of the best South Indian restaurants in the city to visit with your loved ones and enjoy a wide range of mouth-watering South Indian delicacies to your heart’s content at very good prices.
There are definitely a few aspects they can work upon, like adding more color and flavors of south India into their restaurant’s décor to make it livelier and more vibrant, and more importantly, adding more rustic flavors into their dosas fillings to enhance their overall taste, as even though their take on the dosa filling is good, they may lose a few customers who are used to having a more authentic yellow potato filling, infused with lots of curry leaves and mustard seeds.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to this restaurant and I am eagerly looking forward to visiting them again soon and trying many more delectable dishes from their menu.
Food Critic Anmol Rating
Ambience
QUALITY OF FOOD
VALUE FOR MONEY
And that’s it, folks! Thanks for reading and I’ll see you again later with another amazing food review tailored just for you! If you have any feedback or suggestions regarding this review, feel free to contact me anytime!
Take care & Happy eating!