Malgudi Garden — Restaurant in Plano

I don’t understand why there aren’t enough 5 stars for this place.

1. This place serves one of the most authentic South Indian foods. They are serving buffet most of the time. You get a lot of food choices. The buffet price on the weekdays is cheaper than weekends. It’s completely vegetarian. They don’t substitute for the real ingredients as much as possible.

2. They have food choices for people with nut allergies. They don’t put peanuts in everything and they don’t use excessive oil. The amount of chili they use…even little kids eat! Because they don’t use short cuts the food does not taste unbearably spicy, is not unhealthy, is as close to authentic South Indian food in todays age and you can eat a large amount of it. It is up to you to exercise your food portion control when you are here.

3. Regarding silly things on previous posts like I don’t like ambience, and I have to wait long time. You have to come early. There is no exception. We are here by 12:00-12:15 and we always get a seat. Regarding ambience…I personally am paying for the food. You want more food or you want to see a nice environment and go hungry? They have such good food, and they are constantly short staffed because their food is good. you can’t always ask things like this out of them

4. For the meat lovers, that absolutely crave meat there are a ton of Indian stores nearby that cater your needs. You can go there. FYI I found those restaurants unbearable…they use the same soup base for the veggie dish, for the meat and for the fish dishes. They are not as hygienic. And they put so much of nuts, oils, we can’t eat and we get sick. It is very very rare to find an authentic South Indian restaurant that does not try to cheap out like the rest of them. For $14 in other restaurants you won’t even get two dishes. Here you get full buffet of 14 dishes plus all chutney and side salads and full dessert bar on weekends with 2-3 desserts, pano puri and samosa chat. Who else can give a modern vegetarian this variety? For the price?

5. They are very family friendly. They include things like Hakka noodles and fried rice. Fresh veggies like broccoli or corn usually. It’s not even that spicy.

So please don’t keep harassing the owner and ask him if he is going to bring meat, why this and that is not spicy enough.

I love this place. They are as nice as they can be. They clear out your plates for you on time. They give you extra water. If something is genuinely wrong they will try to...

South Indian restaurants typically serve only vegetarian food and this was no exception. Malgudi serves all the south Indian delicacies; from the coveted Dosa to paneer dishes to vegetable curries. This restaurant is ideal for vegetarian eaters.

My love for buffets is unwavering, so naturally we visited this place during a weekend afternoon. The waiting was about 15 minutes and the sheer number of people waiting outside to get a table was astounding. Judging by the crowd, which, by the way, was a mix bag of family oriented and casual groups, I guessed the restaurant was pretty famous among the locals and hoped the food would be fantastic. Food is scattered throughout and starts with chaat, a live Dosa and Appam counter (more on this later) and then the main course with curries and rice followed by deserts and drinks.

Talking about the food, the pav bhaji was sweet and none of us liked it. The appetizers were decent but cold. The main course also was on the sweeter side. The only food we enjoyed to our fullest was the dosa and appam which were hot and fresh. Although, the paneer dosa tasted like a desert and we all regretted it. The mysore masala dosa was the star of this show. They also had idlis and medu vadas along with Sambhar and chutney which tasted good and were upto the mark.

Since this is a south Indian restaurant, it should come as no surprise that all the southern dishes were delectable whereas the others were a big miss. The chaat section, especially Pav Bhaji, completely missed the mark and the curries were on the sweeter side which took out all the fun. The deserts were actually fantastic and I’d recommend everyone to try them out. The mysore pak tasted like it was hand delivered from India.

Malgudi is a south Indian restaurant with a speciality in southern foods. The Dosa and Idli’s were tasty and a must try if you visit this restaurant during their buffet time. The deserts were yum and an easy recommendation. The seating area might be cramped so manage your expectations. Given the price, I felt this particular buffet lacked that edge which would want me coming back again. I’m sure the a-la-carte menu would paint a different picture, but the buffet, strictly speaking,...

South Indian Thali - $11 - Good Price - Service - extremely good - It comes with white rice (Basmati), one chappathi/ Poori, one beetroot portal, one kootu with some vegetable, appalam, pickle, sambar, rasam, one kuruma, one variety rice, one curd rice, one payasam. Variety rice - just a plain yellow rice with no taste, could not figure out what rice it was, curd rice - they could have served curd instead of curd rice which is poor quality with less curd and more rice, kuzhambu - better than Saravana Bhavan, sambar - tasted old but was not stale, not a great taste, rasam - with previous management rasam was a hit, but here it was old and reheated multiple times, not stale, Kootu - good, poriyal - good, payasam - good, basically it is full of carbohydrates with a so called yellow rice, curd rice with no curd, bad sambar, bad rasam. With the previous management the Thali was super awesome. North Indian Thali - jeera rice was the worst, my friend used my rice instead, it was just like ordinary rice and I even felt that they have given old rice, it was really disgusting to even touch. I used to enjoy the thali with the old management. Every single item would be delicious. Paneer in North thali is not sweet like the buffet and that was good. I think the new management has better paneer in the buffet which is not sweet. One time in the buffet they said veg dum biriyani but served chettinad biriyani which I did not like. Their dum biriyani is good but not the other biriyani. Here buffet is really good only when they have dum biriyani. Their mushroom soup in the buffet was very good. Their pizza is as bad as public school pizzas. I like the buffet but depends on what they have. Again, noodles and fried rice - they do not provide sauces. There is no proper Chinese items in the buffet. They can provide shezwan sauce at least one cup for every person...