Ananda Bhavan

Given the quantity and quality of vegetarian restaurants in Little India, I would go to Ananda Bhavan only if I’m left with no other choice. Oddly enough, that «no other choice» situation happened 4 times in my brief 5-​day stay at Singapore. That’s because Ananda Bhavan is open 24 hours. Staying in a hotel in Little India and coming back around midnight every day after doing touristy things, we eventually wound up here every single time. It’s not just us… the place is packed around midnight as shoppers from Mustafa Centre pour into this restaurant to grab their late night grub.
This place has the regular south indian fare as well some north indian dishes and chaats (though the latter almost always runs out). The place almost feels like Bertie Bott’s every-​flavored beans — you don’t know what you are going to get — on one occasion the sambhar was on the brink of «stalehood», on another, they conveniently ignored providing yogurt as part of the south indian thali because they ran out of it (I had to go have a friendly conversation with them to give me raita instead) etc. But otherwise, the food is generally palatable and I wouldn’t mind coming here again and again (in the aforementioned circumstances, that is: P). The bright side is that the staff seems to be aware about the problems they face. But I’m afraid they have no impending need for improvement because shoppers gonna shop and late night snackers gonna snack.

I live in the neighborhood, so I’m a regular visitor when I’m in the mood for dosas or other vegetarian south Indian fare. It’s on the expensive side for what it is, but still pretty cheap in absolute terms. My favorite is the mysore masala dosa, although I seem to get headaches after eating them sometimes, which makes me suspect they’re loaded up with MSG. The other dosas never give me any problems.