Vaigai - new restaurant in the block

"Vaigai" is a new South Indian restaurant on Arques street, close to Fry's in Sunnyvale. After driving by the restaurant couple of times and making a mental note to check it out soon, the opportunity came up last week and stepped in there for lunch. My first reaction after the seeing the menu was that, it is a lot similar to other South Indian places in the neighborhood and the items were probably a dollar more than other places. The increase in price is understandable, blame it on inflation, gas price and all that. But inflation will come down, so will the gas prices but the items will still cost the same - giving them higher profits - no big deal I guess!

To get a sample of many dishes with one order, I opted for a combo dish that came with Dosa, Idly, Pongal and a Vada. All the dishes tasted good and as my colleague commented, Idly looked "really white!". Vadai & Pongal were tasty too. My colleague had ordered a "Thali" and was not too impressed with it. Not that he was complaining about the taste of the food, but just that he is used to unlimited rice from the likes of KV and the limited rice in $12 "Thali" wasn't justified according to him.

As we went there about 1/2 hour before the usual lunch time, the place looked quite empty. And it didn't look like it was going to get crowded anytime soon. We explained that by saying there are too many places, too close to one another, offering the same kind of food. (See below for the list of South Indian veggie places within 5miles of Vaigai.) To our surprise, the place was packed by the time we were done eating. The one advantage that the place does offer is proximity to work - at least for me - (proximity is defined as distance less than 1/2 a mile).

List of South Indian places within 5 miles of one another:

1.Komala Vilas (KV)
2.Udipi
3.Hotel Saravana Bhavan (HSB)
4.Dasaprakash
5.Madras Cafe
6.Dosa Place
7.Vaigai

In summary, food tastes good but be prepared to pay a dollar more than other places. Since you never know what will happen tomorrow, the quality of food may go down or they may start serving Tacos - to compete with the newly remodeled Taco bell near by- you should check it out sooner rather than later.