Saravanaa Bhavan is located in the Woodside Square Mall at 1571 Sandhurst Circle in Toronto's northeast borough Scarborough, at McCowan and Finch Ave. There are two other locations of this chain in the GTA (and dozens worldwide), but this is the only one that offers AYCE. One major and must-note caveat is that there is a ridiculously low 45 minute time limit, by about a factor of two the lowest I have ever experienced at the 300+ places I have visited. I ran a stopwatch timer and chose small sample-size portions so that I could try everything possible. It was quite busy. It's a vegetarian place and the cuisine is South Indian, similar to Anjappar Chettinad, thus many Indian buffet veg staples ie chana masala and aloo gobi were not present. I didn’t miss them as it’s good to have variety! The substitutes certainly filled in well. We went for weekend lunch.
Mini uthrappar pancake was delicious and well-seasoned. Mishy loved the dosa, and she usually does not have it; it was lightly crisp and excellently seasoned, cooked perfectly, full of flavour with a very slight vinegar hint. Vada (resembling donuts) were delicious with savoury seasoning. Butter paneer was an excellent replacement for butter chicken. Lentil soup was fantastic and we both loved it, so savoury and beautifully seasoned. Curried leaf soup was excellent ... it doesn’t say what kind of leaf it, was but at least it was tasty. Chef special dry veg was delicious. We both loved rava kaichadi which seemed to be a potato dish but is really something else. Bisibelabath Mishy was not big on as she thought it was a turnip dish so it was unexpected, but is something else with rice and I enjoyed it.
Onion pakora is a different variant of this served “loose” with much red coloration, rather than compacted nuggets, and was quite enjoyable. Mushroom biryani was excellent and I barely missed the chicken, the seasoning was excellent and very strong. Chef special poriyal is a hot and delicious potato dish which I enjoyed. Potato masala was excellent as was ghee pongal which had a lovely interesting flavour. Vatha kuzhambu had a strong and tangy flavour which was enjoyable. Ooru kootu was another tasty potato soup like-dish.
For dessert, there is no separate dessert buffet and the only options without ordering desserts off the menu are two buffet items. Pineapple kesari (aka pineapple sheera) was all the dessert I needed and was one of the best new dishes we have encountered recently, as it had just a fantastic sweet fruity flavour, just perfect. Payasam (more completely semiya payasam) was the other dessert dish and was quite tasty, though it has an odd appearance as there is vermicelli in it. Weekend lunch was $23 and this is an excellent price. Unfortunately, it would be worthy of a rating increase were it not for the 45-minute time limit, which is definitely enforced, as right on time we started to be told the bill was ready etc. Even if I would not have eaten more, I don’t enjoy the experience as much while being rushed like this... my restaurant visits are events. I’ve never seen less than an hour anywhere else, which I consider the barest minimum. So, 45 mins. is missing a quarter of this or 2.5. Saravanaa Bhavan gets a bonus point back for the excellent price. The food itself was a definite “10”.
Rating: 10 / 10 - 1.5 value adjustment = 8.5 / 10
