BARR - Dosa Place - Revisited

Our experience with Dosa place (we have gone there twice to Santa Clara) has been excellent to good. However, there is a very good reason for this post. There have been repeat comments about the hygiene standards (or lack thereof) from both the Fremont and the Santa Clara branches.

So, it is time to reset expectations based on these comments!

In sequence:

Mitr and K. went there and had a great meal (Santa Clara)

We went there and had a great experience too (Santa Clara)

Balaji went there and found Fly's in the Jamuns. They didn't say sorry and just shrugged and got back 3 more Jamuns (possibly from same batch) (Santa Clara)

Rajk goes there and finds that the service is bad (Fremont)

We went there again, saw that the service was okay (grumpy old men with an attitude, as opposed to chirpy college kids serving us) but the food was sitll tasty (no visible insects of any kind. The food was still Veg.)

Mitr and K. went there again and had a good meal but did not praise the service as excellent this time (Santa Clara)

Anon(would have been nice to have his/her name) goes and finds Roach in the Rasam (Fremont)

In my original review of the place, we did find the service to be excellent, as was the food and were actually hoping that it doesn't get to their head..

Looks like it has!

As for us, personally we have not had a bad experience and would not mind going to the Santa Clara branch again. If we do, will definitely give the owner our two cents!

We have been visiting Peacock recently (since it is across the corner from Dosa Place) and we like the food! Will write a BARR for it soon.

So, don't go to Dosa Place in Fremont expecting it to be as good as Santa Clara.. at least based on the comments here.

Don't expect service to be as good in the Santa Clara branch, as it was, when the restaurant opened!

Please feel free to share your experience in the comment box. We get a good idea of how things change, thanks to your comments.

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BARR - Dosa Place

A restaurant review, after a long time. This restaurant made me get back to writing reviews!

After a strong recommendation from Mitr and K, we decided to check out Dosa Place this weekend.

When San told me that it is between Kiely and San Tomas Expressway on El Camino Real in Santa Clara, I immediately reeled off possible locations.

"Either it has to be in the complex which has DiCiccos or the complex that has the Officemax and Java Coffee.. there are no other places there.. unless the Uno Pizza which became a Chinese restaurant is now an Indian restaurant?". For those women out there who are intersted in knowing San's response, it was "Just shut up and drive!"

There are two new Indian restaurants. One called Peacock in the Officemax complex and the Dosa Place, which has actually replaced Dicicco's Italian Restaurant! I have fond memories of the Italian place. When San was pregnant with Jr., she would order me to go get breadsticks from Diciccos.

Location : 2665 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA
Wait time : 5 minutes (reasonable crowd but the place is big and we were seated instantly).
Food wait time from order : 10 minutes for all items including Dosa
Check time : 2 minutes (Visa, Mastercard, and they take AMEX)
Average price per person : $8
Rating "I miss my mother in law!".
Service : Excellent.. Really Excellent!

Items sampled : Rava Dosa, Poori Masala, Andhra Thali, Chai.

The old Italian restaurant used to be long and the walls were painted a dark color. Now the whole place is brightly lit, and looks spacious.

The food was excellent. All the items were amazing. But there is more to this review than the food. I remember my mom telling my sister once during a function at home "You should always smile when you serve the guests food. That is when they feel like eating". If you read that and said "hey, that is just common sense", well it is not the norm in most Indian restaurants in the bay area where someone serves you because they are paid by the hour and you can pretty much tell that they don't care about your culianary experience!

Dosa Place has a lot of things going for it.

1. It is brightly lit. The place looks festive!
2. The waiters, waitresses, manager, cleaners all seem to be in the 20-30 age group. They remind you of the singapore airlines air-hostesses. Always smiling and energtic and very polite they made us feel welcome.
3. They play nice fast paced Indian instrumental music in the background.

When we asked the manager she said "this is a kind-of family owned restaurant. We started two months ago and have a branch in Fremont".

We really hope that their service doesn't decline as the crowds go up!

For a second I was sad to see Dicicco's go, but now I am happy that it has found a worthy replacement.

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BARR - Chaat Paradise

Had a reader recommend Chaat Paradise! So we decided to go for our evening tiffin last weekend. The place is located at the corner of Grant Road and El Camino Real in Mountain View. It is in the complex next to the 24 hour Walgreens Pharmacy. It is tucked away in a corner of the complex and not visible from the street.

The restaurant is very spacious and has a very nice ambience and is busling with people.

Here are the highlights :





Wait time : 5 minute (resonably crowded for a saturday afternoon).
Food wait time from order : 30 minutes. Real long wait considering our order!
Check time : 2 minutes (Visa Mastercard, didnt check if they take AMEX)
Average price per person : $9
Rating "My wife can cook better".
Service : Below Average

Items sampled : Aaloo Paratha, Samosa, Bhel puri, Vada Pav, Chai.

The paratha was definitely one of the best I have had in the Bay area. These guys have perfected it.

The samosa was also nice. Reminded me of Banaras tea shops. Very tasty but very oily as well.

The Bhel puri and Vada Pav were a Mrs. only exclusive. Her take was that the Bhel puri was good but the Vada Pav was a big disappointment.

Chai was fantastic.

I guess this is one of those places which knows how to make some items extremely well and some other items are a must have in a typical Chaat Menu, but they dont have a handle on these items.

Not once did the people who served us or the ones who took our order or gave our check smiled ! They all looked sad, and reminded me of people working in some sweatshop!

The reasonable tactics for places like this would be to try all the items that other people strongly recommend so you cant go wrong with your order ..

Jr. tasted only the paratha and gave it two "Yummies".

Recommendation : If you know what you are ordering in this place, it is worth it.