In 2013 I was dreaming about how nice it would be to have South Indian food in Finland and Helsinki. In 2020, this dream came true when The South Indian restaurant opened in Kluuvi, Helsinki, in August.
I visited The South Indian Restaurant and made the attached video about the clean and stylish decor of the restaurant and its good tasting South Indian food like dosa.
You can watch the video here –
South Indian restaurant experience in Finland
When the papadum breads ordered as an appetizer arrived on the table, I knew right away that it was gonna be a genuine Indian restaurant experience. This was because the loaves were not any hard crumpled curls, but soft and tasty thin loaves which I don’t remember having eaten for years. Of course those papadums, served with their own chutney, dipping sauce, were priced accordingly.
The menu was well labeled with vegetarian and gluten-free foods separately, and gluten-free alternatives were commendably found. However, the selection was not very large due to the fact that the restaurant had only been open for a couple of days, but a replenishment was reportedly expected soon. I will wait with interest to see if we will get paneer dosa, potato wada, uttapam and South Indian thali later.
I ordered only plain dosa for myself, as the other options were just chicken or sheep dosa. The dosa was correctly thin and crunchy, and inside it there was a suitably seasoned mixture of mashed potatoes. Dosa was served with two different chutneys and the portion was crowned with a sambar, a South Indian vegetable sauce served separately from a larger cup. It tasted just like it had in Chennai many many years ago. The huge dose of dosa with the sweet mango lassi was so filling that the gulab gammu ordered for dessert had hardly any space to be enjoyed.
The service of the restaurant was very good and friendly.
Where is The South Indian restaurant located in Helsinki?
This restaurant has a really great location in the Kluuvi shopping center, as the University of Helsinki and its metro stop are right next door.
Kluuvi shopping center is easy to find on foot, as it is located a javelin throw from the Senate Square, opposite the former Kaisaniemi metro station, which is nowadays known with the name University of Helsinki.
The South Indian restaurant in the shopping centre was a little harder to locate, but it was found in the new restaurant concentration on the 2nd floor of the Kluuvi shopping center. The entrance to it passed through a restaurant called Pizzarium. A random street walker does recognize the restaurant easily, as it is the one where the food is eaten with fingers by adults in the window tables.
Yes, South Indian food is made to be eaten with your fingers, but of course a fork and knife can be used. Cutlery might even be a good idea at this time of corona and handsanitizers.
Greetings from Denmark
In 2016 I wrote about the South Indian Chettinad restaurant in Denmark for my Finnish readers, and a couple of years later, in 2018, I wrote about its successor in Copenhagen. You can read my good reviews of those restaurants in the links attached, and yes, the Helsinki-based restaurant belongs to the same chain, being of an equally high standard. So I can definitely recommend it.
You can read this post also in Finnish.
Read also: Indian snack foods in Finnish and Trip to India
Note: This restaurant does not exist anymore by 2022.
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