South Indian Dosa Mahal Restaurant

The coconut chutney is the best! I also like the eggplant and tomato curry. They make great samosas and pakoras too.

I only tried samosas and sweets, so can’t say about other plates or meals; but as far as samosas it was disappointing. Maybe my expectation was too high after reading all these reviews? Veg samosa was simply mashed potato with cumin seeds in fried dough. not even a slight hint of peas or anything else. just potatoes. Doesn’t even feel 2 for $ 1 worth. No.

Have been to this great veggie restaurant several times over the years and it never disappoints.
Friendly, down go earth service.
Great value.
Thailis, dosa, all great!
Excellent for my kids too!

I was in the area on a Tuesday night and needed somewhere to grab something quick to eat. Walked in about an hour before close but my food was served hot and quickly nonetheless. I would have liked a little more explanation for the menu items but next time I’ll make sure to bring a friend who is a little more savvy when it comes to Indian cuisine. Something that I really liked about this place was their numerous vegetarian, vegan and gluten-​free options. This place seems to do a lot of take out as well. I’ll return if I’m in the area again for sure.

So good and so filling. They also have awesome take out lunch specials and super cheap samosas in large quantities. Yummy! I had the coriander dosa meal and at first thought it wasn’t that much food but was greatly mistaken. I was stuffed! This isn’t a fancy place but they do food well and take great pride in it.

You can order whole dishes if you’re fancy, and they’re pretty good, but it’s much better to just get a paper bag full of deep fried things for $ 4 and lay out in a park slamming back pakoras like god and the constitution meant us to. Honestly.

Fantastic Dosa! Way too much food for under 20 dollars for two of us. We will definitely make this part of our street food lunch stops.

I’ve been staying with friends a few blocks from this resto and the pink sign and «Vegan & Vegetarian» writing always caught my eye. Now, I’m neither strictly vegan nor veggie but I enjoy taking breaks from meat/​fish and today I was EXTREMELY happy to walk in and check out this gem of a place.
We shared a spinach and veg Dosa — crisped to perfection with three accompanying dishes and two house chutney’s (coconut coriander was UNREAL — coconut tomato a close 2^nd), a potato roti with sauce (delictable!) and two chickpea Vaday’s (?) with coconut chutney (tasty but weren’t quite as fresh as everything else and on the heavy deep fried side). The staff were lovely and friendly, food came quickly and was very affordable. A great selection of appetizers and combination meals that range from vegan, to veg to gluten free priced between $ 1.00−9.99.
The people drinking mango lassis at the table across looked very happy — I’ll definitely try that next time. A great place to eat-​in or take out to Dufferin Grove for a picnic.

2 stars for their take out samosas. They have a deal that is like 10 samosas for $ 3. They are small little samosas and the filling is basically just mashed potatoes, but they are pretty tasty. I often get a bunch of those samosas if I have a potluck at work or something.
If I was rating just the meals, I would say 1.5 And the service was 0. The woman came over with a menu and I reached out to receive it and she moved it away from my hand and placed it on the far opposite edge of the table. Weird. She did the same thing when she brought my drink, instead of placing it in front of me she deposited it at the far opposite side of the table so I had to reach across for it. Why? Didn’t say anything when she brings the drink either. I asked for a mango lassi and she said they had a «mango shake». I ordered that and it was awful. Number one it was room temperature! It tasted like they mixed a little bit of canned mango drink with water and maybe some skim milk or something? Anyway it was totally unpleasant. Later I discovered that this watery, room temperature glass of liquid cost me $ 4 plus tax. Ignore the other review that says it’s $ 1! The food itself, served on a prison style metal tray was just okay. The portions were not that big compared to a lot of other restaurants and the curries were nothing special. I really didn’t think it was a very cheap or amazing deal for $ 8.50. What makes something a deal is if it is good and inexpensive. If it is kinda crappy and $ 8.50 it doesn’t qualify as a deal. My meal came to over $ 14 (masala dosa combo and mango «shake»). If you go a little but further east on Bloor St you could go to Banjara and get the most amazing delicious huge veggie combo with dessert for less than that! Further, the interior of this restaurant is awful. Weird pink and yellow walls, horrible fluorescent lighting, filthy vinyl chairs, annoying music playing a little too loud. Not good.

What a great little indian place. Have lived near here for so long and it’s been a staple in my life for the past 4 years. Incredible meal/​dinner deals to take out or to sit in. So cheap. Amazing vegan options. The mango lassi may not be traditional but on a hot summer day who could go wrong with a $ 1 ice cold mango drink? Worth checking out if you like indian food and are trying to save some coin! My favourite are the dollar deals, the chutney is amazing!

This review is for two things: the samosas and the service.
1. Samosas — as I live in the area, I would often stop by for samosas. Were they the best samosas ever? No. But they were 10 for $ 3 and big crispy things with a decent filling. A few months ago, they decided to change their recipe. Why, I do not know, as they were pretty decent before. Now they’re awful. The shell is almost bread-​y and sort of… damp. It might as well be a samosa pizza pocket. Horrified, I asked the woman that works at the counter if this change was going to last forever. Which brings me to my next point…
2. Service — when asked about the old samosa recipe ever making a return, the woman just gave a curt ‘no’. I mentioned how much my boyfriend and I loved the old samosas and she just stared at me as if waiting for me to order. This may not seem like a huge service issue, but every time I’m there, I feel a certain coldness from the staff. They’ve also papered the restaurant with all sorts of «rules» (regarding where you can eat your food, bikes leaning against the building, what doors to enter, etc), that are visible from the outside. This may seem like an innocuous detail, but there are so many of these rules now, it drives me crazy. The restaurant didn’t use to be like this, so I’m not sure what has happened in the past few months.
Honestly, I walk by this place twice a day and it makes me long for the glory days of Dosa Mahal.

Went to this place last night with a friend. We’ve both heard a lot about how great this place is. We sat down, looked at the menu, and waited for the lady to take our order. The lady didn’t even care about us! She kept walking back and forth around the whole store but wasn’t even able to approach us? We then decided to do take out because the stuffed roti caught our eye when we walked in.
When we were at the take out station, the lady was walking back and forth around the store — again! It was raining heavily outside and the sign said that people who did take out were able to eat in the waiting area. Got our food, headed for the waiting area, and the lady stopped us and said that we’re not allowed to sit there because she’s smarter than us. She said that she gave us a table to sit, and isn’t allowing us to sit in the waiting area because we didnt want to sit at the table. My friend and i just looked at eachother with a «WTF» type of face. We walked out into the pouring rain and ate our rotis. It was probably one of the saddest meals we’ve ever had.
The rotis weren’t even that great either. It was cold and hard, and lacked flavour inside. Wasn’t even worth it to be eating in the pouring rain.
We went to Thai Green Chili after and still thought about the comment that the lady made. How fucked up was that for someone to say that to us?

Based on my love of Dosas, being in the area and positive reviews I decided to give this place a go a short while back. In spite of the garish décor (which you can see from a mile away), I wasn’t deterred and looked forward to a finding a great dosa place while I’m in Toronto. Sadly, I’m still going to have to keep looking.
As much as I wanted to like South Indian Dosa Mahal, I found it a tad lacking. I’ve had dosas and plenty of them and most of the time I’m pretty easy to please. When I ordered a masala dosa and received something that wasn’t even assembled, I was pretty upset. Why were the potatoes on the side? If the food was good I’d be okay with it, but it was bland and rather flavorless. Not to mention the fact that the afformentioned décor is retina detaching pink, the prices are average at best and the service is nothing to write home about. So sorry, no special consideration there!
If you’re in the area and are really craving South Indian food, I suppose it’s really not that bad. But by no means is it worth making the trip for.

Walked in for lunch. Had the medium vegan curry for $ 2.50. Was delicious and for a good price. The spices added a nice flavor. It wasn’t salty or heavy at all. Filling even for carnivores.

This place is a vegetarian, gluten-​free Indian wonderland. I’ve been eating here for many years, and I never tire of the crispy dosas and the mild South Indian curries.
It’s family run, and a very casual, laid-​back atmosphere. Prices are super low, and there is a glass case at the front with loads of yummy stuff to grab as take away.

It took months for me to finally go in and get some samosas from this place. What kept me away? There’s an indian restaurant up the street on Lansdowne that sells cheeseburgers and a dessert named, «burfi.» I bought the burfi, ate the burfi, then barfed the burfi. If you’re into syrupy cake balls then you should grab a burfi.
Anyway, so SIDMR is good. The food at this place is CHEAP and delicious… if you’re into potatoes and curry. I tried all of the samosas and the pakora. Thumbs up! I tried the chutney and didn’t care for it tho. I brought a friend in with me one time and it smelt sooo weird. It smelled like they were boiling armadillo skins and diesel fuel back there but they were probably just cooking burfi.
If you like samosas, you should at least try this place out! If you like gagging then check out the other Indian restaurant that sells the burfis and get two. Why two? Because you’ll bite into the first one and spit it out immediately; but then you wont believe that it was actually THAT heinous and you’ll talk yourself into trying a second one (different flavor). I bought six different burfis that one time, all six were escorted to the dumpster where they were likely rejected by wildlife too.

If I have to sum up the food here in three words it would be Bad! Bad! Bad!
Forget by Indian standards it was bad even by Canadian standards, I don’t know about the other reviews but my fellow non-​Indian friends, I will say this is not the place to be if u you want an authentic Dosa.
The Dosa was overcooked/​burnt, the mashed potato were tasteless and that south Indian Aroma was missing, the chutneys were horrible and most of all the good old sambhar was nowhere near to even an average tasting sambhar it was just a bad concoction of under-​cooked lentils and some unknown vegetables,
I did not had the guts to try anything else.
All I know, the chef/​cook had no idea of South-​Indian Cuisine.
Totally horrible experience !!!

Look, at the end of the day, there has to be *some* place in the universe that is the best place, right? What are the odds that it’s in Toronto, or that it’s even on planet Earth? Okay, probably pretty slim. But what are the odds that it serves dosa? Very, very high. Necessary, I’d say. This fact makes South Indian Dosa Mahal, at the very least, in the *running* for the title of «Best Place in the Universe». You can’t refute this logic.
My first few times, I was a little overwhelmed by the menu, but it’s pretty simple once you see the patterns. The main question is «What kind of bread do you want to go along with your curried potato, curried eggplant, delicious sambar, two kinds of coconut chutney, and rotating third curry item?» Your possible answers being: Roti, chapati, idli, dosa, dosa, dosa, dosa, dosa. Many kinds of dosa. Honestly, negligible difference between them, but I say that as someone who’s relatively new to the world of dosa.
Sambar idli makes a great app. Pretty much anything on the menu named «_​_​_​_​_​_​vegetable masala dosa» is a winner. Dip that dosa into everything, bro.
I’m a diner that loves variety, and that’s exactly what you get on every tray of food served at SIDM (that’s what we’re calling it now). Mains are all about 7 – 8 bucks. The takeout is dirt-​cheap, but it lacks the certain je-​né-​sais-​dosa of a dosa. Unless you get it with a dosa.
The décor needs lots of help, but I don’t take stars away for such trivial things when the food I so crave is served up, on demand, day after day (except Sunday).
So, okay, probably not *the* best place in the universe, but *maybe*, just *maybe*, this is what will put Toronto on the Intergalactic map. No way they got dosa like this anywhere on backwards, hillbilly Saturn.

CMYE: Bloordale Bar Crawl #3
Drink??? Food: Cheap Fried Treats
Dear Unilocal Drinking Buddy,
Thanks so much for buying me these treats… $ 3 for 10 and you stop complaining!
Yes I am a cheap date… and I think I deserve better…
And you ate 3 out of the 4 Samosa which already is the better of all those that we got and so you should be happy.
Told you we should order the Dosa… but no. we ended up just staring at Vivek’s dosa and wondering if he ever comes back or we should just have his for dinner…
blah blah blah… Where is my food!!!
To be continued…

I was with 4 other friends. I do not like a lot of spice hence I enjoyed my meal.
$ 8.50 for veggie & meat thali which satisfied me. I love all the little separate compartments on the tray. I ordered a side of the veggie samosas which are out of this world in my opinion, light and flaky and not greasy. I ordered 10 more to go! 10 for $ 3! The coconut & tomoato chutney was $ 1.25 and delicious. The chipatti was fresh, crisp yet doughy and delicious. I ordered an extra one. 2 cans of diet coke and one mango juice. Total was $ 21 and change, great deal in my opinion for all that food!
One friend didn’t find it spicy enough for him. He was disappointed she brought the equivalent to tobassco sauce to him, he then asked for a hot pepper. He took the spicy stuff off of my tray.
My other 3 friends enjoyed their meal. You must love pink, mauve and anything in between to be able to sit through your meal at this place! We did find the service to be a bit slow. It was busy and it was the one lady, presumably the wife and their daughter who is too young to be given any real tasks to accomplish. But if you have great company you really don’t notice it that much.