Saravanaa Bhavan

I really love this place. The paper dosa is so crispy! The potato masala is very mild and the chutneys have varying degrees of spicyness. We also love their Rava Kichadi, Parotta’s with potatoes and a delicious cauliflower dish. The Mini Tiffin is a great place to start and try a bit of everything. And don’t forget to have some Rasmalai for dessert! Enchanting! The Rava Kesari is also delicious.

OPEN 365 DAYS !!! They don’t close in between the day. Best and Original thali we can taste in Saravana Bhavan. This is the best authentic South Indian Vegetarian restaurant in Toronto that offers a variety of cuisine that relishes your taste buds. After some time they have stood up to provide good taste and quality to all our diners. They have well experienced chefs from India endeavor to give what the customer wants. It is mouth tickling vegetarian cuisines without compromising on quality.
Dining at Saravanaa Bhavan will always be a memorable, fast and excellent service experience for you and your family.

#SOUTHINDIANFOOD #SARAVANAABHAVAN # UnilocalGTA
I’ve been to Saravanaa Bhavan multiple times, a couple of years ago. It never was my «go to» place for dosa, but after an extremely unhealthy-​greasy feeling at Guru Lukshmi one time, Saravanaa became a recent first-​pick.
My dad and I decided to try the weekend vegetarian buffet. The restaurant gets super busy and for the South Indian food lover, this could be paradise. However, for a person like me who goes for selective items only (dosa, idli, chutney), this didn’t exactly strike much of a chord in my heart. The dosa was subpar and I found the supply limited and fleeting. Every 20 – 25 minutes, the staff put out dosas that were gone in 5 – 10 minutes. Same story with idli.
It was fantastic having all-​you-​can-​eat coconut chutney though. A lot of places skimp out on that one in particular.
Overall, an okay experience. I probably wouldn’t return for a buffet. I’d like to select my kind of crisp dosa next time.

Worth a 3.5 star rating. We tried the Rasam soup, Masala Dosa and Tomato & Onion Utthappam. It was all quite flavourful, though I found the soup to be a little too spicy. The mango lassi was quite nice and cooling after the soup. It was fairly busy on a Saturday night, but tables come available quickly and service is quick. The furniture is a strange mix of marble style tables and old library chairs. The floor was a little messy with bits of food, but otherwise the restaurant was clean. It’s an interesting place; we’ll be back to try some other options.

Tasty food, nice clean place. prices little bit high for dosas but similar to some others in the area. Try some of the specialty dosas.

Love the place. Been going for years. The coffee is really good too. I always get the special meal and my wife the dosa. Both are great.

Ultimate south indian breakfast buffet! Totally satisfied with this place. The staff is friendly, the food is fresh, Dosas are crisp, chutneys are delicious and sambar is to die for! If you’re planning to catch up the weekend buffet and don’t want to wait then be there by 10.30 a.m.

It’s been a while since i have been to sarvana bhavan and boy had i been missing out. I have been going to another very famous South Indian restaurant which has forgotten how to serve their guests lately and the staff seems to be very arrogant lately.
Sarvana wasn’t too busy at the moment of our visit on Sunday night at 9 and the food was delivered quickly. The dosas were delicious and crispy and sambhar was hot and just as i hoped. Staff has always been extremely polite at this place and i really enjoyed going back to a place that gets it right.
Everybody in our group agreed that my favorite dish, paneer dosa, was the best they have ever tried.
Will be going back there soon and telling all my friends about it too.

I would like to update my review on this place based on my experiences since.
I decided to try something different other than the usual thali. So I tried their Kara dosa, which came out to be a thick, soggy dosa with a sweet tomatoey sauce. Then when I visited again I decided to give their dosa’s another shot and opted for their Mysore masala dosa, which I have loved in other restaurants. They warned me that this dosa is supposed to be spicy but I can handle heat so I was fine with that. But again, I ended up getting a overly thick dosa that was too soggy and tasteless. My brother got the chole bhatura, which he enjoyed but complained that the bhatura’s were a bit too oily.
So I feel that ordering something other than the dosa would be your best bet because their dosa’s are just not worth it and you can get much better ones at Guru Lukshmi or Udupi.

I went here to have authentic south Indian food, however I was very disappointed.
Also the quality of food is low compared to their Scarborough location.
If you are looking for authentic South Indian food, I would not recommend this place.

Great Masala Dosa — the mustard seed flavour of the Masala is perfect. The Parotta was good but not excellent: a bit small and not quite the right flavour compared to other Parotta I have had. The Rasmalai dessert is fantastic — although the presentation is nothing like the menu picture (no saffron strands) and suffers as a result. I will definitely come again if I am in the area. For those new to South Indian food, it would be a great introduction, but those who are picky may not like it as much.

I’m really not sure why this place gets such bad reviews — maybe the quality of the food has gone down over the years, or maybe people are comparing it to some of the more fancy/​expensive dosa places in the area.
I thought the Chana Bhatura & the Dosa that I ordered were delicious and I’m a complete sucker for Sambar. For the price and the quick service, I thought it was a great alternative to some of the other choices in the area.

Average! They could do so much better. No exceptional flat ours. Poor is were way too small. Only redeeming feature was the pappadums.
Service is attentive but we have had much better South Indian.

It seems that a lot of reviewers have already shared their strong feelings on the flavor (or the lack thereof) of Saravanaa Bhavan. To be honest, it’s not terrible like some of the reviews would have you believe. But it’s not particularly amazing either. Maybe if we had ordered from the menu, it would have been better, but we opted for the buffet option, and it was all… one-​note… Not bad. Just not mind-​blowing. It was food stuffs that helped fill our bellies before we left town. It’s closer to a [*][*] experience in that «I’ve experienced better» but a lot of the [*] reviews are unnecessarily harsh.
I didn’t touch the sambar. Sambar is one of those things that varies quite a bit even between two people from the same part of India. Personal experience has taught me that ingesting sambar (especially sambar that you’ve never had before) before a long road trip (or in my case, a long road trip and then a long plane trip) is asking for trouble and shaky leg syndrome.

I tired their Special Thali today (only thali on the menu) and it was fantastic, it was a gloomy day and it was just pefect, 14 items all veggie, it took about 10 minutes to get my order ready, that is kind of odd I would say as they were not busy all all when I entered, that being said it was worth it. the food you could just tell was fresh and clean.
They also renovated, the place looks way better than before, they added some booths as well. so if you are in the mood for some spicy south indian cusine, give this place a try.
Please note: If you are trying south indian food for the first time, it is pretty spicy :)
thanks for reading
PS. the service is a bit odd but not rude. so dont be surpised if you find your server to be a little odd :)

Absolutely love the food! Brought many people here for lunch and dinner and they also love the food. I highly recommend masala dosa and gun powder idlys.

I have been to Sarvana Bhavan a zillion times, okay probably not zillion but you get what I mean :) if you are a true south indian food loyalist you will like the food. It offers good south indian food without the bells and whistles like Chinese hakka Masala dosa or the likes! The food is very true to its roots and the chutneys and curries are cooked in chennai — tamilian styles.
The place recently was revamped and is more organized and looks much neater. The servers are polite and the food is delivered without a very long wait time.
I ordered the thali and it was very very delicious !

Saravanaa has gone on a steep downhill trajectory over the past few years in food quality and service. The only upgrade as of now is the restaurant itself. A few months ago it was very unattractive, almost cafeteria style, with hard seats like you would find in a food court. Kudos to them for getting a massive facelift. I wish I took pictures, but it looks lovely inside. They even have an electric fireplace (for some reason) in the tiny entrance.
But ambiance aside, the food itself did not get a similar makeover. I will never again order a masala dosa from this place. There was a mere SMEAR of potato bhaji, a few tablespoons at most, in my dosa. The chutneys were pretty bland and also in small amounts. The best thing was the sambar, spicy and warming. The dosa itself was very oily.
My dad had the Saravanaa Special Meal, which consisted of ten TINY dishes (curries, chutneys, curd and a gulab jamun), rice, two papad and two pooris. As is the apparent custom here, the poories were miniscule. They were baby poories. I mean, how much are they saving really by cutting the quantity of their menu items?
And it’s not like this place isn’t hopping. We got there at 7pm for dinner and already a queue had formed. This was the trend for the rest of the night, and people even crowded outside and left when they were told it would be a half an hour wait.
The waitstaff were pleasant enough, although our server tried to take away my plate before I had finished. They also left the front door open for a while, telling us «the air conditioning was not working». It is necessary to note that it was 10 degrees tonight, not a balmy summer at all.
This restaurant is NOT good for groups. There are tables of 4, and they can put a few together if needed. But do not come in with a group of 15, like people did tonight, and assume you will get a table quickly. Check ahead of time if you can make reservations.
My mom had the best meal tonight, the Mini Tiffin. It came with uppama, mini idlis in sambar, a mini dosa (with probably the same amount of bhaji as my dosa!) and a sweet. The sweet sheera was delicious, with cashews and raisins. Sad I didn’t go for that.
PROS:
— nice ambiance, comfortable booths
— delicious, spicy sambar
CONS:
— oily dosas with virtually no filling
— crowded early, stays that way through dinner
— NOT good for groups (call ahead)
— hasty servers who do not consider the weather
— miniature food

This Saravanaa is not as well run as the one in Scarborough. The food is not that good. The dosa was cold & okay. The sambar tasted like spicy north Indian dal! I am surprised since I was under the impression that this Saravanaa in Mississauga will be better than the one in Scarborough.

Dosa is sometimes seen as a delicacy. Most do not make this at home. So when looking for a dosa fix, and a proper one, I have tried to come here.
I came here about 3 times this year.
The service is minimal. You get your food, which comes in small portions, and you get out. You pay at the counter at the front. So that kind of tells you what type of set up this is.
Zero ambiance. hard cold seats, storefront setting, in a plaza. Walls peeling.
It is all veg food — no meat.
The dosa was barely filled. I mean, barely. I would say two tablespoons of filling in the large paper dosa.
I would rather go to Annjapar a bit further south.