A2B Indian Vegetarian Restaurant — Restaurant in San Jose

Update: July 2024 I have visited this restaurant three times this month. I have had varying experiences with the tiffin options. Twice the food was so spicy hot. I had to inform the chef about this. The chutneys where having a lot of heat due to the green chilies too. Today, the coconut chutney seemed a bit old and lacked any salt. Request for salt to be available at the table went unanswered as the staff were busy. But they were courteous. The kurma lacked a punch and was less flavorful.

Update: Nov 2023 Quality is still good. Internet is a bit choppy. Recommend ordering from the table and confirming with the staff once to make sure your order went through.

Update 7/16: Restaurant is still consistent in delivering food service and amazing food. Tried a new dish on the menu, Pitchu potta Barotta with Salna. This is Shredded South Indian style Parotta with vegetarian Salna (gravy). Amazingly good. Staff were very friendly and helpful. Note: Do tip in cash at the cash Jar to help the staff

The restaurant has a great array of south Indian delicacies to suit the palette of a whole set of preferences. To those that are not familiar with this brand, this is a very popular restaurant chain in Chennai and surrounding areas. However, this restaurant here in Silicon Valley is much better than the ones in India in terms of taste and quality! :-)

Location: The restaurant is ideally located in the heart of Silicon Valley right on 1st Street between 237 and Montague expressway. When coming from 237 exit on 1st street towards San Tomas/Montague expressway, the restaurant is on your right side. It's very easy to miss this because the restaurant name is slightly hidden.

Parking: The restaurant has adequate parking in the mixed use residential + commercial complex that it is part of. Street parking might be difficult during rush hours. Hence, use the parking spaces inside the building.

Ambience: The restaurant has a prime location in the complex it's part of. There is adequate patio seating with a covered heated area in case you want to dine outside. You do need to check in with the host as it gets crowded easily over some evenings and most weekends. They do have ample seating inside as well, but this place is so popular that it gets crowded soon. Get there early! The inside seating is very comfortable and clean. The restrooms are very well maintained which is a bonus! :-)

Service: The staff are very friendly and courteous. Our group was seated very quickly within a few minutes of us checking in. The ordering process can be done through the waiter or using touchless ordering via QR code. They have free Wi-Fi and I would recommend that you connect to the Wi-Fi prior to ordering so that you have a good connection to complete the order. Wireless carriers do not cover this area well for some reason and hence data connections are very patchy. Connecting to Wi-Fi is highly recommended.

Food: Once you order the food, it's prepared very quickly and served to the table. This restaurant has a lot of South Indian dishes which are very popular including the thali, dosas, mixed selection of dishes, etc. Order anything and you will not be disappointed.

Though they offer very good coconut chutney and sambar, the onion garlic (red chutney) today felt like it was stored in the fridge and was served cold. It would help if the chutneys are fresh. But the taste was okay no big issues. We ordered Idlis and Sambar Vadas which were delicious with the chutneys.

We did order the filter coffee with a strong decoction request. We were not disappointed and ordered one more to indulge and satisfy our cravings for South Indian "Kapi". It offered a good finish to the meal (brunch).

Even though, there were very minor issues, I recommend this place highly and give it five stars...

I love this restaurant despite not being vegetarian and not being well-versed in South Asian cuisine (my favorite is Maharashtrian street food like sabudana vada and pav bhaji).

I always get the hara bhara kebab and the curry leaf idli. They are indescribably addictive. In fact, I like to order other things to use the sour cream sauce of the curry leaf idli on when all the idli are gone.

(It is annoying that the hara bhara kebab plate isn't always on the menu. It's not because it sells out, because there's hara bhara in the Sizzling Kebab platter that is still available when hara bhara kebab is not, but you only get 2.)

Most of the other food has also been good, like the millet dosa or the "raw banana" (unripe plantain) bajji, but my go-to's are so good that it's Sophie's Choice trying something new instead, so I haven't done a deep dive of the menu like I like to do at restaurants.

I also usually get a Madras filter coffee; others have complained about it but to me (admittedly not a coffee snob) it's smooth and not bitter. The chai is also good, but I prefer going to Chaiwalla where I can choose from a variety of flavors and drink it out of a kulhad.

The service is very attentive. They give you a pitcher of water so that you don't have to chase someone down to get refills, but even then they don't let you pour your own water and insist on doing it for you. (Update: Turns out that was only one guy and the other waitstaff don't do that - maybe he's a manager or owner?).

My biggest complaint is that the full-price and the $8.99 dosas are both on the menu as separate items during happy hour (Tue-Thu 5-7pm). I ordered the wrong one, assuming the price would be adjusted at checkout, but then found the correct one while scrolling through the menu trying to decide what else to order.

When I brought it to a waiter's attention he tried to gaslight me first that they weren't doing discount dosas anymore, then he changed his tune and tried to gaslight me that the price had increased because happy hour was "ending soon" - I could see there being an issue if the house clock and my phone clock were not in sync with each other, but there was a good 20 minutes left. What restaurant stops charging happy hour prices 1 minute before happy hour ends, let alone 20? Most places with a happy hour that I've been to even have a grace period after it ends, where you can still get happy hour dishes/prices.

Then when I managed to get an order of the same dosa to go through successfully at the lower price, the waiter finally, after consulting with another waiter(?), said he'd take the more expensive one off my bill. By this point my good will was worn out and I decided not to order anything else. I normally spend $50-60 here, not just $9. Their loss is Pav Bhaji and More's gain (best pav in the bay area, even if their logo looks like a Sikh turban on a butt).

A minor gripe is that the internet here is slow and not very reliable, so it can be challenging to place an order since you have to order online. I do like the convenience of ordering online and not having to flag someone down, though.

Some reviews say it's not easy to find parking. I guess they missed the GIANT PARKING STRUCTURE behind the restaurant, that is free, to boot. Oh, well, I'll just be here enjoying my food while you circle the block a...

First time here on recommendation, food was good but service and attitude of staff PATHETIC. On arrival, there was a waitlist scan code which didn't worked. After 10 mins wait/retires on code, collect it was not working and needed to talk someone to add to waitlist.

On entry, no one comes to table ever to take order, my little one figured out after 10 mins wait, we need to order via scan code (which was hiding behind the tissue box)

We ordered and food came, starters delivered to table with no plates to eat. Got plates finally after 5 mins or so hunting ppl to help with plates.

Rest of the food delivered and in 10 mins while we were still eating the guy comes with check and asks for payment, No courtesy to ask if we needed something else ? On request from us,. that we have more to order, the guy says kitchen is closed and we cannot get you anything. My wife requested him twice if they could add one more item, but the guy was so rude that kitchen is closed and we cannot take any orders. At least share with the guests, the kitchen is closing in 15 mins when you are making them sit at 10PM, so guests can place all order at once.

On payment, they added 12% service charge by default (first of all what service was given? nothing all pathetic from start), then while we were eating how rude of person to come asking for payment. Didn't had courtesy that guests are eating and should wait till we wind up food. And they wanted Service charge on top of it.

Secondly CA had clearly declared LAW that Service charge cannot be added by default. The guy started talking softly when I flagged him on this rule, as if he didn't wanted others to listen about this new LAW (they did refund me as he knew they didn't deserved any Service charge for pathetic service). I am used to adding 15-18% Service charge, but had to sit back today as they didn't deserved a penny as service charge.

In short, they were cheating all their guests by adding default Service Charge which is against CA LAW. Going to send a note to CA state also after this post, so others who have been cheated without asking them should be refunded or the restaurant license cancelled for this FRAUD with customers for charging them without Customers knowledge.

Today was first and last day in such a pathetic restaurant. Go there if you want to be cheated and like pathetic service else stay away.

Note: I have been to bad experience restaurant in past, but you can consider how bad this is that had to write a review here which never done before...