Saravana Bhavan, Canal Saint-Martin, a friend…

The holidays are ending. I enjoyed my last day of freedom with my friend Valérie who learns Hindi with me.

She took me to Saravana Bhavan, a famous vegetarian restaurant, 170 rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis. This is a chain; you can eat at Saravana’s everywhere from the Usa to the Emirates. The food is really different from the Indian restaurants I usually go to in Paris. Very few stews, no cheese naans, no lime pickle, no alcohol except Kingfisher beer and of course, no meat! Most of the dishes are from the South; the specialities are dosas, idlis and thalis.

 

The food is very fresh, fatless, not too salty, refined which is quite unusual in an Indian restaurant. The only weak point; I found the sauces a little tasteless and the dosa was cold. But all in all, it was a good experience and the chai was delicious!

The atmosphere in the restaurant was warm. The customers were talkative and enthusiastic. Most of them were Indian, which is the sign it is a good restaurant. The waiters were smily and elegant. I enjoyed the modern, classy but simple decoration; a mixture of grey, black and white. It was very different from the fake zardosi Taj Mahal pictures, the elephant carvings and the former-Chinese-restaurant chairs that you can see in other Indian restaurants.  From one o’clock pm onwards people started to queue up on the pavement.

For all that you can see in the pictures, we paid 32.50 euros.

 

 

If you want to read a nice post about this restaurant, go to the blog Mistress of Spicies.

And then, a walk along the Canal Saint Martin, before the rain!

Canal Saint Martin before the rain