Dosa Garden
“Almost every vegetarian item on the menu can be veganized with coconut milk.”
“It may be a trek out to Staten Island but its well worth it; just a 20 minute walk from the ferry, or a 5 minute bus ride.”
“My partner and I tried the chicken kotthu roti, which was sauteed roti, fried egg and chicken all shredded up, served with a tasty sambal (sauce).”
Dosa Garden
Takes Reservations: Yes
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Has TV: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Caters: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
7 reviews
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We should have listened.
At our previous stop on our afternoon-long food tour through Staten Island's Sri Lankan food scene, the proprietor had a question for us. ""Who do you go to these other places?" she said, playing with us. "Why not just eat here?"
She reserved some particular scorn for the place across the street, Dosa Garden. She squinted her eyes when we mentioned this was going to be our next step, unwilling to actively denigrate their competition but clearly not a fan of her neighbor.
Dosa Garden wound up being the one dud of our trip, featuring too similar dishes that were in many cases just slight revisions of what's served in Southern India. I suppose that shouldn't too surprising considering the overlong, too ambitious menu covered not only The Pearl of the Indian Ocean but the southern half of the subcontinent as well, along with some Indo-American favorites like the tandoor. (This is the food of Punjab, nearly 2,000 miles away from Columbo.)
We were here to sample their Sri Lankan cuisine, which meant sticking to a few dishes on the side of one page of the menu. We went with pitta and idiyappum (widely known as string hoppers on the Island), along with a kothu roti and idly.
Our waiter took the order without comment, although in hindsight I wish he'd warned us about the incredible volume of samber and chutneys that would come on the side of nearly every one of these creations. There was something I called the 'reverse McNugget problem' far too many sauces for the amount of food to pair them with.
Despite the different names, there was a sameness to the fried or steam lentil creations that popped out of the kitchen. It all seemed cut from the same masala, various shaped and sized receptacles for an identical flavor. The kittu was fine, although not up to the level of what's being prepared across the street.
Dosa Garden loses more points for its dated, too-stuffy atmosphere. Whereas New Asha has the feeling of a community center, Dosa Garden is stuck in the Raj, with faux-fancy directions and incredible stillness. We saw no other customers or heard any foreign sounds during our hours in the place.
By trying to please too many audiences – South Indians, Sri Lankans, white Staten Islanders in the mood for something vaguely 'spicy' – Dosa Garden serves nobody particularly well.
After dating a non-vegan from Staten Island, I decided to bookmark every place that had decent vegetarian/vegan options. Most of the places were Chinese, Indian or Sri Lankan. I have to agree with the some of the other reviews and say the decor wasn't that great. I've been to Lakruwana and their decor is really nice from the furniture to the dinner wear.
So the food – I won't pretend to be a Indian or Sri Lankan food expert, but I do like really good food. I ordered the paper dosa, which was stuff with potato and traditional vegetable curry. The service was pretty good. I informed the waiter I didn't eat dairy or eggs, he presented me with the appropriate options on the menu and made substitutions like coconut milk. He warmed me the vegetable curry was hot and he wasn't lying! The only downside was they didn't have any vegan dessert choices.
The place is ok the nana breads was not really that good soft like its suppose barely any layers in the bread… The price is some what reasonable wish the food was little better.. The place itself is tiny not that much space.. Oh and u gotta tip if u stay there and munch the reason y I got take out lol
Serves great Dosa @ a reasonable price. They have different variety of disaster, uttapam, vegetarian and nonvegetarian dishes. It beats going to NJ and Queens for way better Indian food. It does look like a whole in the wall and when you walk into, but the food is great. There's no buffet here @ all, which they should reconsider. Its cold there all year round with AC blasting and they forget to shut it off in the winter. Back to the food: rava Masala Dosa, Mysore Masala Dosa, chicken tikka Masala, alou Gobi Masala are some of our favorite dishes. It worth a try on the island
A friend recommended the place because she saw that it received good reviews on Yelp for vegetarian food. I have eaten too much Indian food lately so I was happy to see they offer Sri Lankan food. Unfortunately, there were only a few vegetarian Sri Lankan options to chose from. I got excited that there was an "Indo Chinese" section, as I've heard Indian Chinese food is incredible. Unfortunately, the only veg option in this section was veggie fried rice, which the server confirmed isn't particulalrly interesting or Indian-influenced.
My friend and I went with the nut-filled naan, which was so-so. It was definitely harder then usual naan, which is perhaps because of how the nuts affect the cooking process. We found the taste to be a bit bland. It would benefit greatly from a sauce, but since the bread was slightly sweet, it wouldn't be appropriate to douse it with some of the usual Indian chutneys. We also went with one of the Sri Lankan appetizers called "string hoppers" or something like that. They were rice noodle cakes with various sauce toppings like tomato, and two coconut toppings. For $5, you get a TON of food. Very different from anything I've ever had and I enjoyed it.
Randomly traveled through Staten Island on my way to a concert the night before Halloween in Manhattan…
We ended up in Tompkinsville, a pretty diverse area, but most importantly one of the few places in the world to get authentic Sri Lankan cuisine.
There are a good four or five restaurants within this area, the majority on Victory Blvd.
That being said…we wanted to go to the restaurant across the street but it was closed due to renovation, therefore Dosa Garden it was.
Pretty good food, pretty lame service. The other four people I was with were very nice in sharing their selections and thus I sampled all the vegetarian items that were available, and all were super tasty.
We ordered within ten minutes but waited for pretty close to 40 minutes for our dishes to come out.
Thankfully the portions were huge and the prices were pretty reasonable but I probably would not come back here to sit in (then again, there is not much reason for me to ever go back to Staten Island to begin with, no offense).
I would recommend carry-out or calling in before you sit down…otherwise you're gonna wait forever.
Remind self to come back here if ever in Staten Island.
Best masala dosas ever. Crispy, thin crepe with potatoes. Complete with mango lassis, of course. They had me drinking glasses of water after water. I loved everything we ordered. They also have my lamb biryani! Baaa.
Our food took up the entire table.