Aachi AappaKadai

Apam with curries is flavorful and yumm !!

Delicious and spicy indian food! Ate till I could not eat any more. If you want an authentic touch, would definitely recommend. I plan to come back if I’m back in the city

Excellent Aappam with veg kuruma. The vegetarian South Indian thali served for lunch is my favorite. Be with colleagues or with family and friends I have always had sumptuous food at Aachi Aappakadai. My most visited hotel in Sunnyvale

Been here some 3 to 4 times. First time experience was bad due to inappropriate seating suggested to us (4ppl) in a corner sofa with 3 on one side and 1 on another and goof up in the food bill. Of course we sat at another table but the person was quite rude. Rest of the times our interaction happened thankfully with another guy who was very polite and careful in taking orders. Overall food is spicy. Appams are perfectly made and personally I like chef’s special chicken (medium spicy) to go with them. Ambur biryani is delicious. It’s a big restaurant and they could better the ambience by playing softer music and decent videos on their wall hung TVs.

It was a Saturday evening and we actually went to an Indian veg. restaurant (0.3 miles away from Aachi Aappakadai) but the place was very crowded, which forced us to search for another Indian restaurant in the vicinity and finally found this place, Aachi Aapakadai, name of a very popular restaurant chain in South India, Tamilnadu in particular. Let me brief our experience in this awful restaurant,
1. The person who allotted the table, did not even have the courtesy to greet or address us appropriately. We were initially given a table right at the center of the diner, amidst all the crowd waiting around, for their table. Upon insisting, we got a booth in a corner.
2. We waited for 15 mins before we had to get up and ask somebody to attend to us and finally came a man (supposedly the waiter, as there was no dress code at all! we couldn’t actually recognize them in the crowd) who took our order. Another 30 mins of wait for JUST ONE dish to arrive, Chicken Fried Rice and trust me it was horrible!!! A bowl full of rice with more Capsicum than chicken with an awfully raw taste and smell.
3. Then came our next order, their specialty, Aapam with chicken curry. Aapam was OK and the chicken curry had just two small pieces. I would rate them Average.
4. One thing we noticed during our dining, was that the staff were only seen busy in setting up tables for people who come in but seldom notice the ones who are seated.
5. There was a couple (Asian, Non-​Indian I guess) seated next to us, who were asked to move their table, while eating in the middle of dining, with all their dishes and plates, just to give them space to setup the table for a huge family that came in. The couple were accommodating enough to do so. But I don’t know if I would have reacted the same way for such an unprofessional demeanor of the staff.
Finally, some good news, the ambience is good and looks decent enough.
Unfortunately, there isn’t many things that I could write good about this place, from my first visit.
Hope it would get better in future but I would certainly think twice before I try this place the next time.

Have been here multiple times.
Fish Curry, Ambur Biryani, Porizha Kholi etc are best.

Been there so many times. I don’t care about the service or the ambiance. when the food is as I like it! Spicy and flavourful. I am yet to really like their appetizers but their curries are great… My favorites have been poondu kolumbu (a thick gravy with whole garlic), chicken chettinad, Nandu masala (a huge potion of crabs with thick gravy which is mostly their weekend special)

Food is bomb, extremely flavorful and spicy. Never had this kind of Indian food before but its truly amazing. Love love love the boneless chettinad chicken with aapam. The chicken is fantastic. The aapam is totally different than what I’ve had and its awesome, its like a sweeter small dosa. Definitely recommend the rosemilk with your order, things can get a little spicy and it really helps to cool things down.

I found this restaurant on Unilocal.The food was amazingly authentic. I ordered the Chicken thali and Appam with coconut milk. Both were fantastic. The fresh watermelon and pineapple juices were very refreshing.
The service was quick. They answered all our questions about the menu in detail and helped us make the most appropriate selections for lunch.
I will definitely be back on my next trip to the Bay Area. Highly recommended!!!

If you’re really up for a spicy ride, then this is the place !! BINGO !!
General facts — Moderate ambiance & two wings of seating, fairly sized. Expect the obvious, weekends are super busy, especially Friday nights are tightly packed. Staff will be literally running around, not in a messy way though. Cleaning staff were prompt in clearing the used cutlery from the table & were even courteous enough to ask us before doing so, Appreciate it !
Food — It’s a South Indian speciality restaurant, famous for their ‘Aappams’ (Bowl shaped thin pancakes made from fermented rice flour). It’s my 5^th time at Aachi AappaKadai, picked different dishes from their menu & enjoyed as always.
Today’s picks,
1) Mixed Veg Khurma with Paratha — Crispy Paratha & well cooked Khurma, tastes YUM & Amazing together !
2) Poondu Kolambu (Garlic spicy gravy) with plain rice — flavorful spicy gravy (so authentic) & rightly cooked boiled rice, together they make an unbeatable match !
All the items were served Hot & Fresh.
3) Falooda for Dessert — Big cup of Vanilla ice cream with multi layered & colored ingredients. Very attractive & delicious treat !
Pricing — On an average, it costs around 35 $ per two (before tips).
As I said earlier, anyone with a Spicy tooth can never go wrong here. However, there are other good savories like Dosa /​Uttappam/​Idiyappam, which are less spicy & great bites.

Sometimes their food is great. But sometimes, they take it upon themselves to assume that I can’t handle spicy food and they make my fish curry mild, which is incredibly irritating.
If they made my food the way they made it for others, they would get 5 stars. But since I apparently get the tourist version, they get 3.

Food is very good. If you like spicy and tasty, you must try here.
I’m a regular at Madras Café, but I like it here when I want a bit spicy and different. They have good non-​veg items as well.
Dosa, Appam, curry all are pretty decent.

A — amazing south indian non vegetarian restaurant.
The best:
Chicken Chettinad
Appams
Dosa
Pomfret fish fry

I love this place and I want to come here everyday. Maybe every meal. The cauliflower 65 and plain dosa are amazing! Can’t go wrong with those two. The plain dosa is huge and it is only around $ 6.
The service is also great! Overall, whenever I come here I enjoy it so much that I start to think about what I should order the next time I’m here.

Heard about this place from a friend and decided to try it out. There are not very many places that serve aapams, so I was really looking forward to some good aapam and curry.
The place is busy. We got in at 9 pm on a Saturday and had to wait to be seated. Once seated someone was ready to take our orders right away. You have to deal with broken English. There is no politeness; just take your order. Food comes out pretty fast.
We ordered mutton soup which was tasty. The tilapia fried fish was also good. The kids cone dosa comes with 3 kinds of chutney, tomato, coconut and cilantro. Only the coconut one is good. We ordered two aapams; one with chicken curry and other with mutton curry. The chicken curry was good but the mutton curry was not. The aapam was ok; nothing special.
All in all a mediocre place to get aapams.

I usually never give 1 star ratings but the food in this place is horrible. I have been here twice and was deeply disappointed. The biryani they serve during weekdays are a hack, they just serve you yellow colored rice with egg and throw in a few pieces of dry unflavored meat inside.
The menu is inconsistent, many items that they used to carry were missing in the menu when I went last.
The place is considerably clean and service is ok during weekdays. Will not be going back here again.

All of the dishes here are very intensely flavorful. Definitely more unique than the standard Indian fare at most places. The dishes we had were a combination of tangy, spicy, savory, and a bit sweet. The roasted garlic in one dish and the fish in the other were both delicious.
The restaurant has a large interior and was mostly full on a friday night.
Be warned that the dishes can be spicy, especially for those who aren’t accustomed to eating spicy.
I’d recommend coming with a large group to try more foods. The portions here are large!

ROSE MILK!?! WHAT is the wonderful God given gift which I had never tasted for 25 years?!
Unfortunately, the night we came here I had had a not so great day so by 9 pm I had no appetite and drank some of the delicious rose milk and a couple bites of the pancake type stuff.
My boyfriend enjoyed the food but he said that it was extremely spicy and had a hard time eating more than a couple of bites.
I would go back just for the rose milk!

Since our favorite Taste buds restaurant was closed on Monday, we tried the Indian place across the street.
Aachi Aapakadai looks very clean inside, serves some vegetarian options and even indicates which dishes are spicy. We thought that this means that dishes marked as non spicy would be quite mellow. Big mistake. At one point during the dinner I was thinking that I am going to pass out from the spiciness of the food. First I got the hot sweats, then the cold sweats and then I had to stop eating. Seriously, way too spicy for me.
Other than that food was decent.
The reason for 2 stars was, that our server told us that the meal is vegan and once we already started eating that it was not vegan after all. That is NOT cool !!!

How have I never heard of this place until now?! Happily I was tipped off by a Tamil coworker this week, after which I made a beeline to this restaurant. My exploration of a new Indian establishment usually begins with cautious optimism and ends with bitter disappointment, but from the moment I entered the premises, the rich smell of South Indian curry leaves told me that all would be well in the universe.
***MUTTON ROAST — Boneless pieces of goat cooked in special chettinadu spices
Holy crap this is delicious. Tender chunks of lamb in a hearty thick dry gravy. Deafeningly spicy (just as it should be), but still flavorful & complex. Fantabulous.
***CHICKEN CHETTINAD — Chicken cooked in chettinadu gravy
I’ve been disappointed by Chicken Chettinad so many times in the past that I don’t really have any expectations that it will be good. So when the grandmas in the back whipped out this gloriously flavored chicken curry, both potent (beautifully spicy) and alluring, the depths of my soul were stirred. Holy curry leaves, I hail thee! 2 for 2.
***AAPAM WITH VEGETABLE KHURMA
Delightfully soft, nice & sticky, and surprisingly thick. It had an interesting perfumey undertone that was pleasant but perhaps slightly too present. The korma was nice, light, & coconuty with chunks of potatoes and other veggies.
***PARATHA
The true measuring stick, Tamil paratha destroys all paratha elsewhere in India and is the source code for Singaporean roti prata/​Malaysian roti canai. Aachi’s paratha was certainly in the right shape and properly crushed, but I found it slightly wanting in the oil department. I like mine swimming in the stuff, but maybe that preference is colored by the Singaporeans. Quite decent flavor-​wise, pretty crispy (maybe slightly less than desired), and the best example of the stuff in the Bay Area that I’ve found yet.
***KESARI
My heart wanted the ras malai, but my brain said kesari to keep it local (otherwise you might as well order Chicken Tikka Masala like the gringo that you are). It was nice & warm, bright orange. It was very standard kesari, nothing abnormal except the several grains of sand that I encountered. I’ve never been a huge fan of the stuff, so I guess I got what I was looking for.
ALL IN ALL:
Despite the minor deficiencies, this is my new favorite Indian restaurant in the area, and I’m looking forward my return visit with anxious anticipation!