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- May 13, 2013
For five years I was a dedicated vegetarian and for an additional two I was a pretty strict vegan. Chun P. and I were regulars at Madras, and San, the manager at the time, did a great job making sure none of the dishes I sampled featured ghee (clarified butter), dairy or eggs. I appreciate that he went out of the way for me like that.
Now I'm a recovering carnivore, but I still like to go to Madras from time to time. Giant dosa (all varieties, you can get them with potatoes and yummy curry vegetables), channa batura (curried chickpeas with a giant pouf of bread), vegetable bajji (deep fried curry vegetables - Chun P.'s favorite), yummy okra, mango lassi, and on and on! All the food is very reasonable and served the South Indian way - on stainless steel plates/trays. If you can't decide what to try, drop by for the lunch buffet on a Saturday or Sunday. For $9 a person it's a steal!
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Yoon P.San Francisco, CA393493263Jan 24, 2011We came here to meet our last-minute Indian food cravings, and boy, were we glad we came! I'm now a huge Southern Indian Food fan!
Their dosas (indian "crepe") are humongous and scrumptious! And we absolutely LOVED our vegetable samosas and mixed vegetable curry. SOOO GOOOD!!!! I'm getting hungry just thinking about it!
Most of their menu items are vegan (except for yogurt that comes with the combo) and others can be made vegan as well, upon request. And their food prices are very reasonable, especially considering the quality of food. I love how everything is vegetarian! (We had trouble selecting items due to too many choices!)
The only disappointment was their bread selections. I was expecting naan-like qualities and they were just plain breads. Nothing wrong with it, just different expectations! Next time, I'm getting a samosa, dosa, curry, and mango juice!!!
Helpful 8Thanks 0Love this 8Oh no 0- May 2, 2007
I've been to Madras Cafe about ten times. Basically, I'm in love with all their breads. The spices are fairly mild, but if you don't like lentils or dosas or yogurt or fenugreek or cumin, don't come here and write a stupid review. Stay home with your beef-a-roni.
I've found the service to be consistently good, and the prices are half what I'd be willing to pay. Not fancy, but attractive. Again, no tandoori or garam masala dishes. This is south Indian. Uttapam=yum!
My only other advice would be to avoid the buffet-style lunch and instead order from the menu. You'll get better breads that way.Helpful 5Thanks 0Love this 5Oh no 0 
Holly H.San Diego, CA555524Jan 23, 2009WTF is going on with this thing?
After reading my girl Reyna J F.'s review, I decided to give this place a try since it's just a hop skip and a jump away from work. Oh boy... we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. Whoa there, Dosa... (I think it's large enough to deserve to be a proper noun).
This thing is huge.... and quite tasty! We ordered the paper dosa with potato masala, and the cheese dosa with potato masala. Both were equally tasty. I can't imagine a group of 4 each ordering a dosa, there would be no room on the table.
Either way, I'm comin' back. It's good, it's filling, it's inexpensive (dare I say cheap). Next time, I'm getting something a little more spicy.
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Joseph D.San Francisco, CA28671117Jan 20, 2011A solid dosa place, but ultimately falls short due to a lack of extras.
I remember ordering a cheese dosa, but it didn't have a particularly large amount of cheese compared to other places I've been to in the SF Bay Area. They also only provided a small amount of coconut chutney and sambar here, whereas I can get 3-4 kinds of chutney plus a larger amount of sambar at most other dosa places. The amount of batter they use for the dosas seem to be standard at least.
This place is okay, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it.
Helpful 0Thanks 0Love this 1Oh no 0- Jul 18, 2011
This is a review of south Indian food from a south Indian person. The food here is okay, but not that great. I found the idly (hot rice cakes) to be not cooked well, and the sambar (dal soup) that goes with it to be lukewarm (it needs to be served piping hot for best taste).
The dosas were pretty good though. It's nice to have a south Indian sitdown restaurant, but wish the food was better. If you want good south Indian food, would recommend trying Surtan Farsan Mart (not a sit-down place, but better quality south Indian food).Helpful 0Thanks 0Love this 1Oh no 0 - Jun 12, 2010Updated review
So the service at this place still sucks big time (and it was the same two people). But they have such delicious food for the price (and a Southern Indian buffet to boot!) that I had to give them one more star. Again, I have little to compare them too but I thought everything was absolutely delicious.
The buffet is not large, but it is plenty. I could barely walk out of there I was so full. Every dish was very good to excellent. The only weak point were the fibrous inedible okra in one dish (the rest of the dish was fine). If you are not vegetarian, you won't miss the meat in these dishes. They are incredibly flavorful.
As I mentioned, the only real complaint I had was the service. We had to ask twice before we received a dosa. Once we did, I was totally satisfied.
If I was vegetarian, I would probably eat here once a week.Helpful 0Thanks 0Love this 0Oh no 0Jan 23, 2010Previous reviewBoy, I'm glad I waited a day to cool off before I wrote my review for Madras Cafe. As I walked out of that place, you could see little tendrils of smoke coming out my ears, I was that mad.
But then I realized that 70% of my anger at the restaurant was displaced from my horribly acting, whiny three year old. And I would like to apologize to everybody in the restaurant for having one of those kids, you know what I mean. Which is why Madras lucked out and received a three star review instead of a two star.
Why three stars? Food was really tasty and the portions were huge. 4 star tasty. And it was well priced. I rarely eat southern Indian cuisine and don't have much too compare Madras to (the last time I had a Dosa or an Uttapradahm must have been six to seven years ago), but I know what tasty is and those dishes were good. Once we calmed down our shrieking child (after hauling him to the car and almost leaving), we managed to order a special rava dosa and a mixed vegetable uttapradahm. We also couldn't resist the rose-flavored milk shake for the brat (which shut him up for a blessed 10 minutes). Unique and delicious, if a bit sweet. The dosa, unfortunately, lost it's crispiness after awhile, but perhaps that was to be expected considering we were there for what seemed like an eternity.
Why the almost two stars? I would have given the service at this restaurant a one star. The service was awful. Slow. As in molasses. As in an eternity. And maybe it was a nail in the coffin of what I hoped would be a fun evening that turned into a dud. First of all, we were driving home from work and discussing what to do for dinner. We had planned to visit Madras the next day to try their buffet lunch, and then my husband turned to me and said "I have a crazy idea. Let's go to Madras now. Going there will be against traffic" (alarms should have gone off at this point). So we picked up our little boy from preschool, turned around and drove to Madras. Traffic was fine, but we ended up arriving at the restaurant a good 45 minutes before they opened for dinner (we didn't know). We decided to explore the Indian grocery stores in the area. That would have been fine except our son started in with his shenanigans and we had to cut the visit short (after buying some very yummy sweets at least!). Then he insisted we wait on the street in the cold while he watched the cars driving by. This lasted for oh maybe 30 minutes before the restaurant opened. Once the restaurant was open, we were disappointed to discover that they only had lunch buffets. Still, we were happy to explore southern Indian cuisine that is until our son had a very public breakdown (and I did too).
Anyway onto the service. First, the waitress literally stood over us until we ordered (we hadn't even had a chance to look at the menu). Once we received our food (which was pretty quick), she literally ignored us. As did everybody else working in the restaurant (you would have thought they would have wanted to get rid of the whiny brat). Once we had finished eating (as quickly as we could), my husband dragged our little terror outside and told me to take care of the bill. And I sat there. And sat there. And watched the waitress hiding in the back room doing nothing. And sat there. And watched the waitress serve two more groups of people. And watched some other guy walking back and forth from the front of the restaurant to the back of the restaurant doing nothing. This lasted maybe a good 20-30 minutes. Until finally the guy that had been walking back and forth brought me the bill (not the waitress). I felt bad for my husband who had been waiting outside in the cold with our little boy the entire time. Maybe I was supposed to walk up to the cash register and pay up front?
Still 4 star food, 4 star price (even a 5 star price), 1 star service and the whiny brat was our fault and problem. So I give the place a solid 3 stars. I would like to come back and try their lunch buffet. It's nice to have a place that serves southern Indian food. - Aug 6, 2011
i've not been here for non-buffet meals, so this is entirely based on my buffet experiences.
during the buffet, service is speedy; not even 3 minutes after getting my first plate and aloo masala dosai is served. a few minutes after that comes the idli. i must say, the idli can be hit-or-miss: sometimes, they're a bit dry and hard, but usually (including today) it was soft, airy and fresh from the steamer. pair that with piping hot sambar, and i'm good to go.
the pulao and curries are oft-replenished and stirred. during this visit, i noticed the same attention wasn't given to the dessert, specifically the payasam. it tasted great (cardamom is a wonderful, wonderful thing), but for someone who isn't as carefree as myself, a little more TLC in the form of stirring would please them nicely.
Helpful 0Thanks 0Love this 0Oh no 0 - Jul 5, 2013
Pretty standard restaurant South Indian fare. I was super excited just to find a South Indian restaurant in San Diego at all, let alone one that is super cheap and vegetarian.
The pongal and paper masala dosa were my favorites of what I ordered. The coffee was good too. Excited to try the poori and rice dishes.
The chutney and sambhar were not amazing, but pretty standard for restaurant food (coconut chutney is a little watery, sambhar isn't spicy), but definitely at least average in my opinion, not below.Helpful 0Thanks 0Love this 0Oh no 0 
Dawn M.Calgary, Canada1539Sep 23, 2010Lunch buffet today was really good. Compared to my last few visits they have improved their salad (more varied ingredients, no longer just iceberg lettuce and cucumber) and pakoras (not overcooked this time) and masala dosa (crepe was less salty today).
The okra dish was good (not slimy), and the dal was excellent. Really good rice pilau, and very tasty dessert with just the right hit of cardamom.
Service was fine by me - but I'm pretty low maintenance.Helpful 10Thanks 0Love this 11Oh no 0
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