Sadya Restaurant & Bar

This place is a real gem. The chicken malabar is divine as is the mooli fish curry.Last time I went there was a new female owner who was extremely friendly and welcoming and seemed genuinely interested in what we thought of the place.I've also ordered a take away before and despite it only being a small order as it was just for me, as I was living up the road, they delivered it free - fantastic customer service.Yum yum yum!

I love going to Sadya - the waiters are always so friendly and chatty, advising you of exactly what they think you should eat depending on personal taste. It feels like so much thought and love has gone into the menu, that it's impossible not to want everything! Nadam Lamb Curry is my personal favourite along with the Bringal Fry - I think that's how you spell it! Seriously delicious. Not only this but all the selection of breads and pancakes is fantastic. Nothing on the menu is your 'average' Indian food - I had not tried any of this before Sadya. My living in Balham has been made considerably better because of Sadya - i can't wait to go back!

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A taste of Kerala has come to Balham Fay Maschler???s reviewBalham, described by Peter Sellers as Gateway to the South, is a fitting district for a Keralan restaurant. I was attracted to Sadya by the promise of authentic southern Indian cooking and gentle prices. On an unseasonably cold evening we would have appreciated a bit more warmth in the restaurant, but the dignified welcome and service from a chap I took to be the owner made up for one of us never getting round to taking her coat off. Sadya's chefs are award-winning, but it takes them a tremendously long time to get the first courses out. We drank more of a surprisingly good Chablis than we meant to while diddling around with poppadums and chutneys and awaiting the arrival of Cochin salad, masala dosa, chilly idli and cashew nut pakora. Coconut is a staple in the Keralan diet and our meal reminded us of this rather too forcefully - starting with the Cochin salad of sliced root vegetables, which was dredged with coconut flakes. If you have never tried a masala dosa - a crisp rice-and-lentil-flour pancake wrapped around spiced potatoes - it always arrives as an agreeable revelation, as it did to my friend and GP, Pete. Chilly idli, which sounded like a good way of livening up the steamed rice and gram flour cakes, didn't quite come off. It was as if a bottled sweet-and-sour chilli sauce had been sloshed on. Cashew nuts fried in batter were nice, if probably rather heart-stopping. GP Pete ate a lot of them. In the main course I liked the dryness and intensity of lamb porichathu garnished with crisply fried onions. The suggested accompaniment of a Keralan paratha (layered bread) was sound, as was the notion of eating a mild prawn curry similar to a molee with appams - bowl-shaped pancakes, crisp at the edges, soft at the centre, made from leavened rice flour batter and the inevitable coconut milk. Dishes of the day displayed on a blackboard demonstrate an unusually interested approach to the cooking. If I lived nearer Balham, I might go back, especially as many main courses are only about ???4.50 each.

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"I have had 3 fantastic meals from Sadya Restaurant & Bar in Balham (90 Bedford Hill), which opened recently - twice in the restaurant, and once as a speedy home delivery. This place is like a breath of fresh air. The cuisine is from Kerala - southernmost state in India - the owners have avoided the standard madras/biriyani/rogan josh/vindaloo repeats you get on every Indian menu in the country.The menu is filled with dishes you have never even heard of , and all I have tasted have been delicious and different, especially the Fish Molly - a kind of spicy stew with king fish, coconut milk and curry leaves and green chillies. The side dishes are also great: the Paratha bread is DIVINE and the Appam - rice and coconut pancakes - crispy around the lacy edge, and almost melting in the centre. The quality of the food really is very high. They have matched this with a varied well-priced winelist. And another plus about Sadya - it's cheap! FOUR of us went for dinner, had poppadums and pickles, then two sharing platters to start, four main courses, rice, parathas, and 2 bottles of wine - and it came to only ???71! Very good vealue for money. This place is AMAZING! Go and enjoy this wonderful addition to Balham's restaurant scene."

"Great food, very reasonable and friendly staff. The crab curry is really special.... "