Sarashwathy Bavans

Do you want cheap south indian food and have become tired of East Ham? Then you have another alternative … Tooting Broadway.
This place is right outside the station … so you are spared the walk required in east ham … and serves decent and very cheap (its difficult to get to over 10 quids a head even after desserts) tamil fare. The mini idlis, sambhar and rasam are nice, the meal thali has a lot of food and is very filling, and the dosas are rather large. Uttapam is one of my favourite dishes … i have found it made well here on one occasion, and not so well on another.
The service is nothing great to speak of. I once got a sealed coke can with a straw :). They don’t believe in writing down your orders. So when a group of 6 orders 15 items, they will forget to bring you some, and you will need to remind them. On the positive side, if you ask for refills for some items in your thali, they don’t object.
The desserts, except the gulab-​jamuns, were a bit of a let down … but overall its a pretty nice place to come for cheap grub once in a while.

I’m pretty sure this places serves the freshest, tastiest and cheapest Indian food in London, and I make a special journey down to Tooting at least once a month to fill up on delicious dosas, idli and fried aubergine curry. It’s all vegetarian here and much of the food is also vegan, with a wide variety of dishes available on the menu and advice and helpful suggestions on hand from the friendly staff.
I’m in a masala dosa rut at the moment, I just love the crispy lentil pancake stuffed with spiced potato so much I can’t bring myself to move on, though each time I go I’ll try to have a different dish on the side. The unpretentious interior appeals to me — I’ve never enjoyed eating casual meals on a starched white tablecloth surrounded by gilt and goldfish — and it really is the sort of place you can spend a while munching through a few different things, being adventurous and just skipping a meal later to make up for your (relatively healthy) excesses.
You won’t notice them in the bill at the end though, happily — the most I’ve ever managed to spend there is around a tenner and that left me full to bursting with leftovers to take home with me.