SARAVANAA BHAVAN — Restaurant in West Windsor

Went here this morning for brunch with friends from far away. Expected a lot of crowd considering father's day but it was thankfully not the case when we reached there. Ample parking space in the strip mall. The opening time said 11:00 am. We reached at 11:05. The manager told us that it was not yet open but we could sit inside - which we did. Gayathri Mantra was blaring too loudly for 15 mins in a loop. I requested for the volume to be lowered and it was done (phew) but continued for another 15 mins on repeat. Thankfully, they soon changed to some instrumental music on a lower volume - without which it would've become rather unpleasant. Food : We ordered Uthapam, Idly, Vada, Rava dosa. Rava dosa by itself was good but the sambar, 3 chutneys and masala were rather tasteless. I wanted some salt/pepper to enhance the taste but it took me some time to get the attention of anyone to bring it to us. A bit of salt made some difference but it was, IMHO, a bit sub-par. We also asked for coke and they were served cold and nice - perfect for a sunny, summer morning but they did not bring glasses to drink from - meaning that we had to drink it from the can with a straw - a bit "fast-foody" type. My friend ordered rose milk which he said was "good" - it came in a prepackaged plastic bottle. We had to ask for water and only then did they bring some bottled water - a bit strange for them to wait for us to ask and keep 3 bottles for the 6 of us. Again, with no glasses to serve from. We were trying to take some selfies when the manager offered to take a picture for us - and he did a good job.

I must add that ONE brilliant, practical and wonderful facility in this location is to have a nice wash basin OUTSIDE of the restrooms with soap dispenser AND paper towel roll and dyson air dryer to wash and dry hands is AWESOME. Hope other desi restaurants with mostly finger food items will have this very needed and helpful facility.

Overall, decent experience with scope to improve with...

If there is an option to give no starts, I would rather opt for that. We were here at 9.20pm with my 5yr old n 2.5yrs old kids a family of 4. Restaurant closes at 10.30pm, so that means by default, the kitchen closes by 10pm was our assumption. At least when we came in right from the time we were in waiting, none really bothered to take our checkin, people could randomly, everyone else ex0ect us would not be called out or get a seat. When went in asked post that we were seated, understood that it's too late, with all due respect to work they have been doing whole day atleast be upfront n trasparent that we can no longer accommodate any further guests for dine in. We placed the order, and everyone others except for us, gets the order infact once who ordered topups gets it, but not us. They served with wada n Paneer 65, and that's it. The main order was dosas for the kids, which we literally got at the end after I went up straight to the manager . Worst is they would say there are other tables who ordered before u and they have young kids who are waiting not sure how my kids weren't young who have been waiting for ever infact I had to show them screen to make sure they were waiting without any noise.

When we asked, they were OK with us canceling the order after almost 1.5hrs of wait on the table, really ? Is that customer service.

Saravana bhavan sucks big time with their customer service and empathy towards the customers. Wish you guys really understand the pain to spend so much amount of money and time to feel like home food.

You may get so many customers, and my review would be the least of ur concerns, but I am pretty sure that others felt the same, at least being the voice of all. Just the branding doesn't help please remember you get that branding just because of...

We have been here before the new management and the food was terrible. Really bad. Now that there is new management there. There has been many improvements.

We ordered the punugulu. This was okay. I was expecting them to be smaller in size. They weren’t as light and fluffy as I expected. They were a bit dense and heavy.

Also ordered an onion tomato chilli uttapam. This was good. Nice and crispy and fully.

Mysore dosa was okay. The red chutney in the inside lacked flavour. It was just one dimensional and spicy. There was no balance in flavour. And I guess they don’t add any garlic to the red chutney? Because that would help in flavour.

Idli was good. I am a fan of the soft fluffy melt in the mouth kind of idli (mallige idli). But my husband loves the typical Idli the Idli that has a little rava texture. So he loved it.

The service was good. Ambience was good.

Lastly we got a rose milk for take out. This was weird. The milk was slimy like it was old or gone bad? We had already left so didn’t go back to show them.

I would go here again as I want to try the rice items. The thali seems to be a popular option and also the poori and chole bhatura.

Special mention to the Sambar. This was excellent. Very flavourful and spicy and tangy and the addition of little jaggery to balance all the flavours. It was delicious.

The chutneys were good for the most part. The coconut chutney was the best out of the 3. The tomato one was...