As I am always on the hunt for new things to write about, eating out with me can often become an exercise in Anthony-Bourdain-esque bombast (“There’s this new bar that serves fried insects —” I began the other day. “No,” said the hapless friend, hastily. “Okay, then the place where you eat in the dark with…” “No.” “The one with the calf’s head pancakes?” “No.”). But every once in a while, the urge for something tried-and-tested hits.
At moments like this, in Paris, it’s a rough deal. The city isn’t quite the desert for Indian food that it was 18 months ago, but many of the newer options come with a hefty price tag. This week, I was in the market for a more budget option, but where to turn? Around the city you’re more likely to find red velvet, incense, neon tandoori chicken and the dreaded Laughing Cow cheese naan, whereas in the Tamil-speaking La Chapelle area it’s all South Indian or Sri Lankan food. But even here, I’d already been scarred by a few of the restaurants that well-meaning Parisians had directed me to: hockey-puck idlis, gloopy beige vegetables in unlimited servings, and watery sambar.
Today, I didn’t have it in me to go exploring, to parse the trail of South Asian greasy spoons looking to strike gold among the, well, gilt. My flagging spirits had taken a combined hit from a miserable day, a post-Christmas step on the weighing scale, and the looming prospect of January’s punishing work schedule, and I was adamant that only Saravanaa Bhavan would revive them.
We ventured out around lunchtime, into a blustery afternoon, only the prospect of hot rasam keeping us going through the bone-chilling wind and rain. We entered, dripping, to find a restaurant half-full even at 3pm, with French neighbourhood locals, Indian families from around town, and some tourists with huge wheelie suitcases.
As we folded up our umbrellas, a man on his way out nodded at my companion. “Oh, you’re going to have such a good time,” he sang, unasked, and then disappeared through the door into the mist, like the fairy godmother of sambar.
This seemed like a good sign, but I’ve been tricked before, as people in Paris have such low standards for Indian cuisine. Still, looking around, we felt reassured. Surely the sheer number of handlebar moustaches augured well?
Saravanaa Bhavan’s Paris outlet, now over five years old, is one of the fancier (and as this area goes, more expensive) eateries on this stretch, and certainly the most sober. No Ganeshas, brass or Bengal tigers: just gilt-framed mirrors, shiny grey rexine, and metal jugs of water lined up on each table.
The menu is the same (I imagine) as any Saravanaa anywhere in the world, with the addition of Kingfisher beer and wine for the French. Apart from varied tiffin standards, from uttapams to idlis to a dozen kinds of dosas, it also has ‘Chinese’ and North Indian items, all vegetarian — gobi Manchurian, paneer biryani, and the mysterious mushroom rogan josh. Generous thalis, and dosas, both tubes and triangles, were rustling their way around the room.
Some things, like avial and rava khichdi, are only available at dinner, so we stuck to the basics: rasam, sour and spicy and sinus-warming, little vadas and idlis in sambar, and obviously, dosas.
On our right, a table was having an argument about how to eat with one’s hands. To our left, the triple-earringed waiter was explaining the menu to a couple. “ C’est une crêpe de riz, croustillant, avec ou sans patates ,” he said. (It’s a crispy rice crêpe, with or without potatoes.) Some pointing and oui-ing later, the pair appeared to have ordered four dosas and a matar paneer. This might have offended a purist, but the waiter just looked inscrutable, as if he were thinking dark thoughts about these mixers of paneer and sambar, but didn’t want to say.
The service is confused, but well-meaning. My paper masala dosa came about two minutes after my idlis, which presented me with two enormous thalis to attack simultaneously. “Eat this first,” said a passing waiter in English, nodding to the crsipy dosa. “It’s getting cold!” he added, his moustache drooping in disapproval.
I wasn’t going to be hurried over my idlis though. I was savouring them, cutting them into mini-bites with my spoon, so that I could take turns with all the standard Saravanaa accompaniments — coconut chutney, tomato chutney, sambar. Then I tore into my dosa, dragging it through the sambar and the chutney and the masala aloo with a beatific expression on my face, revelling in its sameness, its chain-ness.
Beyond the cast of nostalgia, Saravanaa’s food is consistent and good. There’s something to be said for reliability, and for quality food that ticks the boxes at a fair (though not cheap) price. As I swigged the last of my sambar, people were finishing up all around us too, most with a Café à la Madras in a stainless steel tumbler. A family began to pour their filter coffees from the saucer into the cup and back again to cool them, like a troupe of actors hired to provide the real Udupi atmosphere for homesick expats. It wasn’t the most exciting meal of the year, but sometimes you just want to nestle in the warmth of what will never let you down: a perfect paper dosa.
(Naintara Maya Oberoi is a food writer based in Paris)
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