Woodlands Vegetarian Restaurant — Restaurant in George Town

I came with my friend today for lunch. We had the banana leaf set. We took quite a long time to finish our food since we were talking for a long time. Once we were done and went to the cashier to pay, an Indian lady who was taking over the cash register looked at us up and down with judgemental eyes. What she said shocked us.

"Are you done with your stories? Took you long enough. I thought y'all gonna end up sleeping here."

Seriously? Is this how you train your servant. We came here for a happy meal just for your worker to spoil our mood. You're literally in a F&B chain. Your workers should know enough about satisfying the customers. I was so disappointed with that lady. And seems like she shows that attitude to other customers too. My mom once went here and that lady behaved exactly like an uneducated person.

Know your servants. Teach them to treat customers properly. If the place is packed, be polite about it and we'll gladly leave. Don't have to behave like we were hogging the table. It wasn't even packed today. From the way that lady spoke, I would've simply thrown my money at her face and leave, it's not like I don't have money, I wouldn't even step into the restaurant. But I won't do that, because then, there would be no difference between me and her.

Either change your servant, or fix them. Truly...

Update: The service was more attentive this time and our food was at the table pretty quickly. I will double down on my previous comment about the masala dosa. Has to be the crispiest and tastiest one here in Penang. We were fortunate to get vadas from a freshly fried batch and they were hot and crispy on being served. Absolute delight to have with the white and red chutneys. The idlis were soft and puffy and combined superbly with the sambar and chutneys. Well done 👍😊.

My family and I greatly enjoy the food here. It is vegetarian south Indian and they make the best masala dosa in Penang in my opinion. The poori with potato is smashing, too. The filter coffee and lassi are outright winners. And yet giving it five stars is difficult. The service is haphazard, sometimes for no reason at all. It is just the lack of effort. This morning we received all our food pretty quickly and they were well made, tasty and well presented. And yet, one item - vada - was completely forgotten. We kept waiting, finished the rest of our breakfast and then reminded another waiter as ours was nowhere to be seen. The vadas were out in a jiffy and yummy too. So where were they all this time? Also, had asked for sugarless coffee, got one with sugar in it. All said, if you want a golden brown crispy dosa don't hesitate to come here....

2025: Reduced to 3 stars. Don't understand the logic behind not writing down the order as the staff keep forgetting things that we ordered. Masala tea and ginger tea turned out to be extremely watery. Not worth it, considering there are so many options around.

2021: Nothing much has changed from earlier visits. Place opens at 8:30am so I saw people waiting outside at 8am itself. Items like dosa, upma they use ghee. If you don't like ghee you need to request beforehand to use oil instead.

2018: 4 stars Authentic South Indian vegetarian restaurant. Food tastes way better than the numerous nasi kandars in Penang.

Dosas are their best sellers I think since I could see most of them ordering it. Tried the chilli bajji which is ridiculously spicy so we ended up eating just outer covering. All the items looks like freshly made since they were served piping hot. Would definitely come back to try out other items as well.

The only suggestion would be to serve items with chutneys in plates which have compartments for placing each chutney. Right now all of them just get served on a flat plate, where they get all mixed.

Small place, mostly occupied even on weekdays. Service is only on the ground floor, not sure why there is no service on the first floor. Place can be cleaner since it looks a...