"I've been meaning to come here for years, as it's one of the two best-known vegetarian Indian restaurants in the city.
If you're here, I'd highly recommend the appetizers. I had the royal thali, which comes with three appetizers, soup, dessert, tea, and a thali with bread, pappadum and rice. It's easily enough to feed two and it's $16. (Prices were very reasonable; even when they add a gratuity for groups they only add 15%.)
I can't recommend the vegetable soup. The menu refers to it as "delicate"; it's tasteless and it has baby corns in it (since when is that a traditional Indian vegetable?). The tea was bitter, had a skin on it (?) and I didn't finish it. Fortunately the rest of the food was better.
Appetizers:
The appetizers come with three sauces (tamarind, coriander, and coconut) and some pretty good sambar. My advice: skip the awful soup and wait for your sambar if you're getting the thali. The waiter explained what the sauces were, which I'm not used to, but which is nice. (I've always wondered about the white sauce, though having been told it was coconut, it was obvious it was.) These were obviously freshly fried.
The lentil doughnuts (madhu vada) are indeed delicately flavored, with a nice crunch on the outside. The "vegetable cutlet" was tasty and is best attached with a knife and fork. The samosa is the mashed potato kind and pretty good too.
The roti with the thali was a little tough where it was folded, but the pappadum was perfect and crisp. The pickles and curries were pretty good: the cauliflower curry was nothing special but the eggplant was particularly tasty, and I say this as someone who doesn't like eggplant. The dal was fairly standard, perhaps a little bland. The "special rice" was way too heavy on the lemon. The plain rice in the thali center was extremely long grain and cooked perfectly. The rasamalai (paneer poached in milk with pistachios - like rice pudding without the rice) was delicious and very sweet; texture was an interesting contrast.
Service was attentive once I ordered, though it took a while to get someone to come take my order. They looked a little worried that I took so much of the thali home (come on, it's a thali and there's only one of me).
Overall, it's great to be able to order anything off the menu, and the appetizers are highly recommended. Their dosai look beautiful as well. However, while I may order the appetizer platter in future, I won't get the thali again. The Woodlands Special looks good, though it might come with that awful soup. The garlic naan is made with fresh garlic, so it might be worth a try too. This is pretty good Indian, but not consistently great."
