• 3
• Tastes good but...

I had read about this place on happycow. Here's my Annapurna Cuisine review. I had known about this place for a few years and finally decided to give it a try. From the outside, the restaurant seemed like a typical family restaurant. The set up inside is very simple, with the buffet spread to one side, and many tables for seating inside throughout. Diners can see the kitchen and the cooks working from the seating area. On this day, there were a good amount of Indian lunch crowd (a good sign that the food is authentic). We looked at the lunch buffet, and it offered a good range of dishes, but it had only 2 vegan hot items, so my husband, the vegan, decided that he didn't want to eat here. Instead, I bought an order of masala dosa and also samosas to-go. While waiting for my order, I watched men bring in grocery by the boxes and cart loads... corn oil, canned beans, conventional vegetables, tubs of yoghurt, white sugar - basically all conventional ingredients and not particularly healthful. Sigh. Personally, I prefer to eat healthy and organic, so I was disappointed by the sight of these products. But this is an Indian restaurant, which I suspect is no different than most other Indian (or Chinese, etc.) restaurants. In other words, just because a restaurant is vegetarian does not guarantee that they use healthful, natural, better quality, or organic ingredients! Anways, onto the food. The malasa dosa, to my surprise, tasted really good with its large crispy crepe and spiced potato stuff. Very flavorful. It came with tasty dipping sauces (a red chili and tomato sauce as well as a coconut one). I raved about it to my husband while eating. Well, shortly after eating, my stomach felt very heavy and slightly pained for about an hour. Then it got better. It's not unusal for me (or many people, non-Indians, I know) to experience discomfort after eating Indian food in general due to the spices and oils. I've yet to eat the samosas... I will toast them tomorrow and eat them with the dipping sauces (a sweet tamarind one and a green mint-yoghurt one). I hope I feel okay. Overall, I would say to eat here if you like authentic and flavorful vegetarian Indian food... BUT you should have a stomach of iron.