Saravanaa Bhavan

This place was good when they opened up, but they’ve gone downhill very rapidly. Food is pretty bad and service is god awful!

I very rarely write reviews, but my experience here was very disappointing! We found a hair in «2» out of the 4 dishes we had!!! Very disgusting to say the least. Will not be returning.

Worst food ever… Anand bhavan taste better… Chennai super kings in San Jose tastes better… Sambar tastes pathetic… Bisibele bath taste like Dal n rice… All Mexican chef can’t cook Indian food.

The food is ok type. And they refused to take payment by credit card even though my bill was $ 10.90!

Avoid them. The juice won’t be worth the squeeze. The food is served cold, and taste doesn’t justify whatever spices they dump. Service is moody and ambience is not in the menu. It has a price tag though. Rotten, in short.

CUSTOMERS BEWARE!!!
The Fremont store manager is running a scam. Went for lunch today. After receiving a bill, the waiter requests that we pay by Cash. When asked him the reason he stated that their Internet connectivity for the machine is not working. He then showed a hand written sign near the waiting area. Since, I didn’t have enough cash, I provided him my credit card info and phone number and went to the nearby bank to get cash. When I came back, the manager said, he’s already charged my credit card. This person lied that the machine just started but in fact it was working all along. This was unnecessary inconvenience so that they can operate an all cash business. You all can guess why. So please beware of this location.

Love love love this place!!!
My husband and I always get the masala dosa and butter masala dosa!
Our favorite chutney my far is the red one and the green mint one comes in second!
Honestly everything is really good as service is fast and that’s exactly what we like!
Sometimes it’s hard to get the waiters attention once you receive your food but just wave at them and the will come to you!
We come to this Fremont location even though the Sunnyvale one is closer because of the service and taste!

Delicious food! Some of the best South Indian in the Fremont area, with a great variety of dosas. I love that the food is pure vegetarian as well.
Service is as expected — it’s functional, not amazing. Don’t come here for the ambiance, but the dosas are enough to keep me returning. Also, make sure to get milagai podi on the side of your dosa or uttapam, and finish your meal with a nice cup of filter coffee!

Disgusting place and we dont know why we go back– probably just coz we r lazy. But never again. We were given water glasses and there were lipstick marks all over the glass. Disgusting. Dont even know what we were really served for food.
Hygiene is at its lowest worst.

I used to go to HSB every time I went to Chennai. I love the food. Everything is awesome. I ate at NJ too. I am surprised at how they maintain their quality throughout their franchises. Good stuff. Keep it up!

The girl working at the front desk is very rude to the customers. Worst service ever they want the customers to just eat and go without giving service. I think its like a family business coz if we tell something to one person everyone will come and fight with us with no reason telling dont come to this place again. WTF Is this the way you talk to your customer showing fingure to customer?
Worst…worst…worst!!! Better keep some well mannered staff in front instead of this uneducated people who don’t even know how to behave.

Amazing kesari (sweet made of semolina) and filter coffee are very authentic. Some of their sweets in front (display) are also good.
Their dosas/​crepes are really crisp and nice. The rava dosa takes a while so if you are hungry go for something else. As a «tam-​brahm» love their thair sadam (yoghurt rice) which is very cooling for the system.
If you are looking for appetizers, try the mini idli sambar and vada sambar. Ask them to dunk it in the sambar so it is well soaked.
One star removed since security outside the restaurant is not great and our vehicle was broken into.

Update– after 2 very bad experiences we were skeptical to visit this place. But we were in a hurry and yearning Indian breakfast dishes. So we decided to give them a last try. And redeem themselves they did!
Got the onion rava dosa and masala dosa. Both were amazing. I think the taste of the sambar has also changed. Was hot, spicy and flavorful.
The rating is an average of my 2 experiences
Previous review– Went here for dinner last night with family. Got a large variety of dishes–
Meals– decent
Kaima idly– most disgusting thing I ever tasted
Vegetable parotta– was partially cooked and not spicy nor crispy
Combo 1 — the idli was partially cooked, the dosa not crispy and rava khichadi was soggy. The only edible thing was the sweet.
Pesarettu– the best of all the stuff we got.
Onion rava dosa– crispy, was good.
Idli– again raw.
Bisibela bath– was just sambar mixed with rice.
Definitely the kitchen staff has become non Indian. Can taste that in the food. The spices are a little uncooked and everything doesn’t taste the way it should. My last visit 2 weeks back had bad service, now the bad food. Not coming back.

How can everything go wrong at the same time?
Food was oily and crap
Very bad service
Waiters didn’t pay attention
No cup for water even after half hour
They served parota with aalo instead of khurma
If u r contended eating shit go here

Horrible service and serving. No raitha with rice, is this the way u server rice?
Waiter doesn’t know what is what, make faces when u ask something.
Not coming here for sure.

I came with a group of six to eat masala dosas! How ever two of the people ordered uthapum (spelling is probably wrong) and we had gotten our masala dosas really quickly! Which was nice but the other two people who had ordered the other dish took about 30 mins waiting for their food.
Every time we’d ask about the update on the food they would say oh two mins! And two mins had turned into 30…
The samber comes in a really small bowl. But free refills.
For lack of customer service … 2 star rating!

Extremely horrible horrible place to go! My first and last time ever here! And i will definitely spread the bad word.
When i got there, i was seated instantly with my mom. We we were ordering our food, half of the menu had «ran out» on a weekday? We ordered according to what we were told they did have and ate the food. The food was not so pleasing and cold. We were starving so we ate it. After we ate we had to wait 30 minutes before we had to keep gesturing a waiter ourselves to place an order to go. All the workers there were avoiding eye contact with every around us. The kitchen workers were running outside doing random things and the waiters, wait you couldnt even tell who the waiters were and how many were even there it was so chaotic.
We ordered 5 dosas togo for my family at home who was waiting to have dinner, and waited 50 damn minutes and asked 2 guys waiters whatever they were 4 times where our food was! Both puzzled and then the douchebag at the cash register has the nerve to lie and tell me theyre were making fresh potatoes because they ran out! Yet i saw other people having dosas come out to them with potatoes. And NO! I am not exaggerating.
So he told me 10 more minutes, i waited 15 for him to come up to me and tell me that if it was ok if they made them without potatoes! WTF was going on?!! Like seriously i waited this long for these asses to tell me that they ran out of another item and lie like idiots! The most unethical, disgusting place ever! I am waiting for this shitty place to close down now. DO NOT GO HERE! There are much better places local in Fremont, this place’s food sucked along with their horrible service!

While I am not a fan of South Indian food, I was not completely disappointed with my experience here. My mom, my aunt, and I came here on the way to an Indian expo. The first thing that I noticed was that their dessert display was empty, which was a bit sad. It took a few minutes to get seated, and when we got to our table, they had just wiped it down and it was still really wet. I thought that it was a little unprofessional just because it took about 10 minutes for it to dry up.
Our server came to take our order in the first minute of us sitting down. We obviously had to ask him to come back in a few minutes. We ordered a Rasa Vada, Thali with an extra Chapati, and Chana Bathura all to share. I also ordered a Mango Lassi as a sweet treat.
The Rasa Vada and the lassi came out very quickly. The lassi was surprisingly good; I was expecting there to be too much yogurt, but the balence was actually very good.
The Rasa Vada did not taste fresh. The Rasa was very watery even though the flavor was there. It really just tasted like spicy water. The vada felt like it had been soaking for days. While I do like the vada to absorb some of the rasa, this one had too much and was very mushy.
Next to come out was the extra chapati. Just that; none of the other food was there for another 5 minutes. The thali finally came out there was a good assortment of food. Most of it was alright, but got cold pretty quickly. The chapati, including the one that came to early, got very hard quickly.
My Chana Bhathura took a long while to come out. When it did, though, I could tell that the bhatura was super fresh. The chana on the other hand was a bit cold, but it did taste nice. My big problem with this dish was that it was so disproportionate. I was finished with my chana before I was half done with the bhathura. It it had been the other way around, I could have at least eaten the chana by itself, but the bhathura would have been too dry to eat by itself.
To finish off the meal, my mom and aunt got some Filter Coffee. I didn’t enjoy the taste so much, but they really loved it.
The service here is also very questionable. They are ready to help when you call them over, but they are very disorganized and often forget for rings you asked
Overall, in terms of food, it was a decent experience, better than I was expecting really. Though I would not suggest to come here on my own, I was happy to accompany my mom and aunt.

It’s kinda scary when your meal is bigger than your plate… but I like it. Pro-​tip if you’re looking for something meat-​y. You will NOT find it here! Nonetheless, the food was still good!
I got the masala dosa which was this huge crêpe with a potato mixture inside. It also comes with 4 dipping sauces. The crêpe was soft and crispy (it makes sense when you actually have one) and the potato in the middle had good flavor.
Overall, it was big, but it was wasn’t super filling. I was just satisfied and was hungry again later. I would come back though. The food is good.

Food is good. But the service is really really bad.
And I was pushed to limits this weekend. We went as a party of 4. I ordered Channa Batura. Usually it doesn’t take that long. But this time I did not receive my order even after my friends had finished their dishes. The server was unapologetic with a very rude demeanor. Since we were running out of time for another appointment, I had to skip the order. 45 minutes for a Channa Batura?
Stay away unless you are really ok to be served poorly.