Sri Ananda Bahwan Restaurant • Tanjung Bungah — Restaurant in George Town

I've visited SAB pretty often over the years, first at their outlet in Butterworth, and as they expanded, at their branches in Penang Street, Macalister Road and this one in Tanjung Bunga.

Because of the location, the last named is popular not only with locals, but also with tourists staying at the hotels in the vicinity.

Most of our time, I have breakfast, usually thosai (dosa), a typical Southern Indian food prepared from rice and gram, milled into a pasty mixture, that is scooped on to a hot plate.or griddle to cook. One may have it plain, with egg, onion, masala or rava (semolina). What is served on a platter appears like crepe or pancake folded over. It's usually eaten with sambar (dipping sauce) prepared from lentils, and chutney (relish) prepared from coconut, plain or with peppermint for added flavour. Once I had chutney with mango added ... If you've ever tasted this, you'll be wondering why they don't make this a regular add-on.

Only on occasion do I eat lunch or dinner here, in which case I'd probably have rice and side orders from the takeaway counter. For dinner I'd order chapati, a flatbread made from whole wheat,

The menu is more extensive than what's mentioned here. If you're a fan of Indian food, try tandoori chicken with naan bread, plain or with garlic. This is a popular North Indian food. Or try the local mee goreng (fried noodles). While noodles are of Chinese origin, mee prepared here have a distinctly Indian flavour.

You are advised to make reservations for groups especially during peak periods.

Be adventurous, try something that you haven't eaten before. Bon appetit.

Car parking: SAB have a private car park for customers. It's two doors further on the left on the main Tanjung Bunga road. Or park along Jalan Oldham and use the ...

One of the worst Anandha Bhavan branches in Penang.

A family member of mine took us out for lunch at this restaurant. 4 of us were vegetarians, the other 3 were non vegetarian. 3 of the vegetarians ordered a banana leaf set and I ordered curd rice.

The banana leaf set was cold, despite it being peak hour, and the mango “pachidi” item was spoilt. By spoilt I mean it was visibly slimy and smelt bad. When we showed it to the waiter, he denied that it was bad and claimed it was made fresh. We asked him to try it for himself and he laughed, refusing to admit that it had gone bad.

The curd rice I ordered had not been cooked at all. It was literally raw rice with an excessive amount of seasoning mixed with curd and uncooked vegetables - almost as if it was put together immediately after being taken out of the fridge. Absolutely disgusting and inedible. Stopped eating after 3 spoons. When we tried to show it to the waiter again, he denied and repeatedly said that all the food was made fresh.

Lastly, we ordered a mutton biriyani for my non-vegetarian family member. The biryani itself was flavourless and bland according to them and only 3 small mutton pieces were served in the whole portion, that too with barely any meat sticking to them.

Please do not come to this place. They use the strategic location to mark up the price whilst serving the most cheap quality food. The restaurant itself has a beach bar kind of theme which fools a lot of customers into thinking they serve nice food. However, the food’s quality does not match up...

I have been to lots of places to dine and would categorise myself as a very patience and tolerable customer but this place has a very bad service. I have no idea how their serving system works but they took almost 45mis to serve biriyani which I suppose its already readily cooked. Same goes with nasi goreng that we ordered, they claim they need time to make acceptable but the time they took doesn't justify the serving, presentation and taste is below average. Its difficult to get a waiter to attend u even with their call bell, but u can see whole lot of them gathering at one corner of the shop but none of them were at the place where customer is dining. When we asked about this one of the waiter argued and never even apologise for the lack of service on their side. And we were not wrong as when we were questioning the waiter about this, another customer came up n complains the same as us. He claims he experience this bad service twice when he came over. And I saw a Chinese couple who arrives and waited about 15 mins at their table but not even 1 waiter attended until the Chinese man had to go to the cashier person to tell that no one attended them to take their orders. N this scenario happened when this place hasn't had that many customer which it is not a very busy period. This place used to be one of the best I visited last a few years back but now I would say it is at its below average mark. I hope the management will take a serious action in handling this matter if u still want ur customer to turn up...