Malgudi

Idli is good and Kothu barota is awesome!!!
Hotel ambience is awesome… better to have dinner than lunch

Food here used to be fresh and tasty 3 – 4 months back. However, now, if anybody wants to eat at this restaurant then I recommend NO! food is worst. we ordered naan and they brought paratha, upon asking they say it’s naan only. We ordered bhindi masala curry wherein the bhindi was not cooked at all. It’s like eating raw and uncooked bhindi in a cooked gravy. moreover, surprisingly they charged 20% gratuity which they never used to charge .it was a unsatisfied, tasteless and worst dinner that we had today. I would never go there again. No way I can’t give zero stars to post otherwise I could !!!

I love DOSAS! These dosas are delicious and the tuesday deal is so great. I will be back for another Tuesday soon!

5 stars for the Tuesday All-​You-​Can-​Eat Dosa special for only $ 20! Everything else is also quite tasty.

Tasteless food! Can’t believe South Indian dishes can be messed so easily. If it’s catered to only non-​indian taste buds they should probably pre warn other customers. $ 13.95 for a dosa is very high price and you end up having a non-​satiable experience for both food and price! A definite NO.

The lady who works there was quite rude, wasn’t friendly at all. Food was bad. I tried their haleem which was terrible. I think they cooked chicken curry and put all of it in a blender & served it as haleem. I am not going back to this Restuarant.

Good Kothu porotta. But bad customer service.

This place does not serve authentic south Indian food. The «thali» consisted of idli and dosa (my south Indian dad joked that this is the first thali he has had with no rice). The lemon rice had no lemon, no mustard needs, nothing. The vada was bizarre. The north Indian fare was passable but not worth writing home about. Worst of all, when I politely gave feedback to the waiter that they should serve real Indian food with some spices, he said «people here don’t like spices. You could have told me if you wanted it more spicy». Let me just say that no American or European friend of mine would call this Indian food either. Avoid! p. s. I am south Indian born and raised.

Fate beckoned me in at lunch hour on a broiling hot day as I realized the G’town shuttle was not going to carry me to Calvert and I was going to have to walk 20 mins uphill on Wisconsin — when I saw the sign. And it read: Tuesday All You Can Eat Dosas.
They’re sizable for one person, and though I wanted to try them all I settled for Palak Makai (perfect!), Chicken Keema (very good), Pesarattu Uppuma (OMGood, the delicate lentil flour dosa itself is worth the $ 20 admission) and an appropriately, intolerably sweet, piping hot Jaggery-​drizzled Dosa for dessert. If only I had sharing company I would have definitely tried the Mysore Masala, but I was beginning to feel self-​conscious at my amount of dosing (sorry). The lentil sambhar was a little too hot for my northern palate, but everything was cooled down by a delightful roasted cumin and mint lassi that was refreshing if a little heavy on the ice. The flavours are definitely superior to your standard northern Indian buffet lunch. Based solely on my lunch experience, a strong four thumbs up – bring a friend so you can try them all.

Heritage /​Malgudi — very good hospitality and great good. We liked everything we ordered (kothu roti, spinach vada, bisibela bath). Nice location and ambience. The exterior can be made better. We didn’t know that Malgudi is same as Heritage India (we were given both menus when we ordered). Nothing a simple paint job can’t fix.
Good food; good people. Definitely recommended!

The best Dosas you can have in DC. We went on a Tuesday for lunch. They have unlimited Dosas on Tuesday for 20 $. We tried almost every type of Dosa. Paper Dosa, Mysore Masala Dosa, Vegetable dosa, Chicken Tikka Dosa. The speciality was Desert dosa — Chocolate Dosa and Fruit Salad Dosa. Every thing was superb. Mouth watering experience!!! Maashaalla!!!

This place is average. We had high hopes as we drove around washington. you can’t call yourself a south indian restaurant and not get basics like Sambar correct. Too much daal, very little tamarind. Similarly all the dishes we ordered, sambar, kothu parotta etc did not have hing or curry leaves. How can you cook SI food without these two main flavouring ingerdients. nevertheless the food was not bad, it was edible. It just looked like some north indians first attempt at SI food. passable grade.

I got the masala dosa, which was fine, but nothing phenomenal. The dosa itself was crisp, but they skimped out on the actual potato filling. The real disappointment to the meal, however, was the sambhar. The lentils were more on the uncooked side, there was a lack of spice, and it sort of tasted watery. Good thing the chutneys really made up for the sambhar’s failure. The service was passable. The ambiance of the restaurant was warm and inviting, and the décor was really nice. The overall experience was ‘meh.’ DC could sure use a local Woodlands.

We hit Malgudi for brunch this past weekend, and enjoyed every bite. BF tried dhansak (lamb in a spicy sauce) from Heritage menu and was very pleased. I decided on the thaali (southern India breakfast foods sampler), and was bowled over by its yummy starchy goodness!
Thaali: Potatoes and onions in a crêpe (dosa), lentil stew (sambar) with fluffy idli for dipping, and a savory «cream of wheat» with onions and peas (upma). Best of all was a semolina pudding of sorts — rava kesari — full of cardamom and pineapple — pure heaven in bowl. Coconut chutney was also tasty, and a welcome addition. This may be my new favorite meal. Masala chai was nicely spiced.
Overall, seating was comfy (extra cushions on benches), waiter was attentive, view of blaring CNN at bar was pleasantly blocked by a glass wall. A heater by the door prevented most of the frosty drafts from affecting us.
We’ll be back, and I’m all for more thaali!

Stopped in for lunch. Pleasantly surprised to find out that it is in the same exact space as Heritage India, and we could avail of both restaurants’ menus. From Malgudi’s South Indian vegetarian offerings, we chose the Thaali, providing a variety of starches (dosa, idli, etc.) with a side of sambar (lentil stew). From Heritage India’s menu, we selected the Malabar coconut chicken. All the food was delightfully prepared and presented – was the trickling of oil on top of the chicken curry really in the shape of an om? – and delicious. In fact, our only complaint was that we underestimated how much food they would give us, and we had to take quite a bit home!

much better than upstairs. much less pretentious. food is just as good and cheaper.
Good service, and I love the variety of dishes. Wish they kept it open on evenings.

Absolutely dismal South Indian food. This place served probably the blandest Indian meal I have had in my lifetime, which is saying something because I have had better Indian food in my college campus restaurants.
We ordered the golgappa from the Heritage India menu and what they gave us were four measly golgappas for $ 5.59. They were extremely disappointing as the sauce that was served with the golgappas were not tamarind sauce, but some random salty broth. Additionally, the filling was cold and completely flavorless. We managed to finish our measly portion and hoped the entrees would be better.
For our entrees we got a masala dosa to share. The dosa itself was acceptable, but the potato filling was bland. All the sauces in the king’s ship couldn’t salvage the dosa, because even the sauces themselves were terrible. The coconut chutney was not coconutty at all, the sambar was just colored water and the other sauce was terrible as well. Really wanted to introduce my friend to South Indian cuisine but instead went home experiencing the blandest food I have ever tasted — and I am talking about Indian food here.

DC sorely needs South Indian food. There are plenty of Indian restaurants in the city, but the cuisine that I grew into at the now-​defunct Udupi Palace in Langley Park is distinctive and worthwhile and nowhere else in DC has a lot of this stuff.
Malgudi is a pleasant space with elegantly carved wooden chairs and soft décor and music. Directly under Heritage India, which has an almost completely different menu, allowing Malgudi to be quite specialized. They bring you a large water bottle and leave it, something I wish more restaurants (especially those with spicy food) would do. Other South Indian restaurants I’ve been to have been exclusively vegetarian; this one, while certainly vegetarian-​friendly, has a menu about half vegetarian and half not.
I indulged in a dosa (crêpe) with spicy coating and a potato filling, which was thin and crispy and went well with the dipping options. Also sampled appetizers: lentil donuts (yes, lentil donuts) (medhu vada) and fried potato dumplings (aloo bonda); both delicious as are most Indian street foods. The utthapam (pancake) was less inspiring; bland an a tad dry though a dip in the ubiquitous sambar (lentil stew) livened it up nicely. Their take on bisibelebath (lentils and rice) was pretty spicy. There were a number of other dishes that looked well worth trying.
Service was very attentive. The food didn’t come quickly, but it’s worth the wait in my view. I ended up hovering on a 3.5 because the flavors just didn’t quite match up to my favorite South Indian food experiences, and for the price they ought to. Also, there were dishes I’d thought to look for that weren’t on the menu (paneer curry of some sort, Mulligatawny soup, anything with chick peas; maybe those aren’t endemic to the region). I was satisfied, but not to the extent that I’ll crave it until I’m back. Call me a South Indian food snob if you must. I will likely be back at some point, and if they knock my socks off with a spicy dish I’ll up the rating.

(This is a long review)
I was a bit apprehensive when I heard the Heritage people were opening a South Indian restaurant. I am South Indian, and grew up on this food – so I generally find it lacking in restaurants.
My friends and I bought the Capitol Deal a while back, and just went in to the restaurant this weekend. The deal was $ 14 for an appetizer and entrée (from limited selections off of their menu) and unlimited champagne, mimosas, or bloody marys.
I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of food here. It is not the best South Indian food I have had, or even the best I’ve had in a restaurant, but I would put it on par with how I remember Udupi Palace and Woodlands (up in Langley Park) being about 15 years ago– solid.
I had the Medhu Vada (Lentil doughnuts – 2 pieces) as my appetizer, which was good– clearly had some spices in it, and it was fried well, not dripping in oil. I think it could have done with a bit of salt, other than that I was pleased. The Sambhar (lentil and vegetable stew) that it is served with had the same flavor as I expect from other South Indian restaurants, but more of it, which is what those other restaurants generally lack. They also gave us a coconut chutney (a bit lacking in flavors other than coconut for my taste) and a tomato chutney (my friends really liked it – I thought it needed more spice and tang). I also tried a bite of my friend’s Idli (steamed rice and lentil cakes– not like «rice cakes» you think of– 3 pieces, served swimming in Sambhar). They were also good– a bit denser than my mom’s come out at home, but not too bad.
I tried the Paneer Utthappam (kind of a thick, rice & lentil pancake, with paneer where you might otherwise put blueberries or chocolate chips?) The paneer lacked flavor (it was supposed to be spiced!) but the Utthapam itself was decent – the batter needed salt, but not so much that it was egregious.
One of my friends had a cheese dosa, which I think she enjoyed, and the other three had various incarnations of the Kotthu Poratta. I think people generally enjoyed their food, though I was analyzing my own a bit too much and forgot to ask.
We all had mimosas or champagne. The mimosas were better than your average bottomless (though not the best ever)– a good ratio of champagne to juice.
I knocked it down a bit for service. One friend’s Kotthu Poratta came out cold, she sent it back to have it heated up more. They did a decent job of keeping our glasses full of mimosas/​champagne, but other than that, the service was slow. We waited probably 30 minutes after they brought us the check for them to come back and pick it up so they could run a credit card.
Overall I think it’s currently decent, but I’m guessing the quality will go down in the future until it closes, as happens to other South Indian restaurants in this area.

I had such high hopes for this place, and trekked to Glover Park with a dosa craving. In retrospect, it was a terrible idea.
The absolute main problem with this place is the atrocious service. We came on a Sunday for lunch, and the restaurant was moderately crowded, though emptied out fairly quickly. We placed our order of one appetizer and two dosas. It took 20 minutes for the appetizer to arrive, and an additional 25 minutes for our dosas to come. All the while, not one waitstaff member asked how we were doing.
We had to ask twice (!) when our food was coming, and I came seriously close to simply leaving a few bucks for the appetizer and leaving. When the dosas did come, the waiter said it was taking longer than usual to make the onion rava dosa. This is information that I could have used before I ordered it. If a dish takes time to prepare, the obvious thing a restaurant could do is inform the diner.
Overall, the dosas were OK. I was expecting some more spice from the Mysore dosa. The cauliflower appetizer was a bit greasy.
But even if they were very good, I don’t think I could tolerate the inattentive staff. Washington is a cosmopolitan city with many dining options. If this place isn’t even going to attempt to compete, then I don’t see how it survives.