Cheerful, Lively, Spicy and 100% Vegetarian
A Review of Sapthagiri Restaurant, in Jersey City

By FRAN SCHUMER
New York Times | New Jersey Dining | Jersey City
Published: November 2, 2012

AT 8 on a recent Friday evening in Jersey City ? pre-Hurricane Sandy ? the stretch of Newark Avenue known as Little India was neon-bright. Shoppers bustled in and out of stores. A group of people, their shoes off, crowded around the entrance to a shrine. A man strolled up and down the street, cradling a newborn girl. It was the end of a workweek and the mood was ebullient.

The food that I ate at Sapthagiri, one of the street?s most popular restaurants, was colorful, complicated, unusual, ridiculously inexpensive ? $82 for dinner for four, including tax and a generous tip ? and, like the street before the hurricane, brimming with energy and life.

Vinni Ankum, who, with his brother Praveen, owns Sapthagiri and a branch in Franklin Park, is from the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. His kitchen serves dishes that are popular in northern India, too, but it specializes in southern Indian cuisine. In contrast to northern Indian food, the curries of the south are thinner, rice is favored over bread, and the use of coconut is lavish.

Sapthagiri serves only vegetarian dishes, which is why it is also popular among Jews who keep kosher. In September, it catered Samosas in the Sukkah, a party for 100 people celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot at nearby Temple Beth-El, Mr. Ankum said during a telephone interview after my visits.

Inside, Sapthagiri isn?t elegant, but it?s cheerful, and the air is redolent of a dozen freshly roasted spices. The scent alone demands that you take your place among the tables of customers devouring dosas and begin to navigate among the 131 dishes on the menu.

Dosas, the trademark food of southern India, are one of its main attractions. The thin, golden crepes, prepared from a mix of ground rice or cream of wheat and urad dal (whole black lentils with a white interior) are interesting from a purely architectural point of view. Unrolled, a paper dosa has a diameter of up to two feet. The fillings vary. Mysore masala dosa, for example, comes with a mix of potatoes, onions, green peas and cashew nuts that Sapthagiri electrifies with brazen quantities of garlic, ginger, turmeric and cilantro. Mashed potatoes have never tasted this lively.

Uttappam, which are thicker dosas, present an even more intriguing mix of textures and flavors. It has been weeks since I ate an onion chili uttappam, and I am still thinking about the pleasing contrast between the sweet flavor of the caramelized onions in the batter and the slightly sour flavor of the fermented lentils, the little twinge at the back of your throat each time you swallow another mouthful of the sweet and sour, caky dough. Eating it with your hands is customary; dipping it into the coconut chutney that Sapthagiri enriches with cashews, lime and not-too-hot Thai chilies only adds to the pleasure.

For a restaurant that is strictly vegetarian, Sapthagiri offers a stunning range of dishes. Masala vadas, the small, round patties made with lentils and peanuts, are notable for their texture. When you bite one, you hear it crackle. Inside, however, it?s a sponge, perfect for absorbing sambar, the soupy vegetable stew served with it.

Gobi 65 is the vegetarian version of a dish called chicken 65. One of many stories used to explain the meaning of the 65 says the dish was created to feed Indian soldiers in 1965. If so, then they were lucky soldiers. In the vegetarian version, chunks of gobi (cauliflower) are dipped in corn flour, then deep fried in oil that has been tempered with mustard seeds and curry leaves and mixed with a sauce made from red chili peppers. You can taste each of these ingredients with every mouthful. The ginger chutney served with the vadas and most other dishes adds sweetness to balance the spicy flavor of the gobi.

Eating a samosa chat is as much fun as eating an ice cream sundae. The cold yogurt flows over bits of hot samosa, both ingredients bound by a tamarind sauce that is as rich as any fudge. And for curry lovers, even cowardly ones, there is vegetable korma, a mix of carrots, cauliflower, potatoes and green peas floating in a soothing, milky coconut bath.

Desserts are characteristically sugary; I find mango lassi a more refreshing alternative, and after my last visit, I got it to go, sipping it slowly as I walked the streets of this vibrant neighborhood.

Reached on Wednesday after the storm, Mr. Ankum said he was getting by with his generator and was cooking a small number of dishes on his gas stove for the few customers who had straggled in from the neighborhood. ?There are a lot of bachelors here who don?t even have milk in their houses,? he said.

With any luck, both Sapthagiri and the area around it will soon be back to their bright and lively selves.

Sapthagiri

804 Newark Avenue (corner of Liberty Avenue)
Jersey City
(201) 533-8400
sapthagiri.biz

WORTH IT

THE SPACE Pleasant, informal well-lighted storefront that seats 64 inside, and 35 outside in warm weather. Wheelchair accessible.

THE CROWD Couples, small groups and families, including some children. Dress is mostly a mix of saris and jeans.

THE BAR No alcohol is permitted in the restaurant in deference to clients who do not drink, one of the owners said. Coffee, tea, soft drinks and lassis, yogurt-based Indian drinks, are available.

THE BILL Appetizers, $1.99 to $7.99 (for a plate of assorted appetizers); entrees, $4.99 (for a plain dosa) to $10.99; desserts, $2.99 to $3.99. American Express, MasterCard, Visa and Discover are accepted.

WHAT WE LIKED Mysore masala dosa, onion chili uttappam, masala vada, Gobi 65, vegetable korma, mango lassi.

IF YOU GO Open Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 8 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Hours were curtailed last week when the neighborhood was without power. No reservations; street parking.

RATINGS Don?t Miss, Worth It, O.K., Don?t Bother.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/nyr ... -in-jersey-city.html?_r=0

Our 10 Best Vegetarian (and Mainly Vegan) Dishes in NYC

Village Voice
By Robert Sietsema,
Fri., Jul. 2 2010


​The kanchipuram idly at Sapthagiri is served with tamarind sauce and homemade coconut chutney.

In case you haven't noticed, vegetable matter is the new meat - easy to cook and digest, jam-packed with vitamins and minerals, environmentally friendly, and, most important, good tasting. We've ransacked the menus of eateries in all five boroughs and even in near New Jersey to come up with our list of vegetarian faves. A large percentage are also vegan, and have been so marked. Eat and enjoy - and tell us the things we've missed.


​Waiting for their eggplant parm at Torrisi.

10. Eggplant Parmesan at Torrisi Italian Specialties - Served with a generous cup of extra tomato sauce, the eggplant parmesan at Torrisi is a multi-layered wonder, bravely wearing a fresh basel leaf on its breast, made with great mozzarella, and, miraculously, not cooked into total oblivion. Call for availability, and expect to wait a while for it. 250 Mulberry Street, 212-965-0955

9. Broccoli Rabe Hero at Casa Calamari [vegan] - Slicked with plenty of olive oil, the bright green vegetable, crunchy and yielding all at the same time, comes dotted with whole cloves of caramelized garlic. Deposited on a well-crusted hero roll, it makes one of the tastiest and most filling sandwiches in the world. 8602 Third Avenue, Brooklyn, 718-921-1900

8. Kanchipuram Idly at Sapthagiri [vegan] - Idly is normally one of our favorite dishes, spongy rice-and-lentil pillows that come with at least a couple of earthy and pungent sauces. This version at the strictly vegetarian Sapthagiri (weekends only) incorporates cashews, fresh turmeric, shredded ginger, and cilantro - a flavor combination that launches the saucer-shaped treats into orbit. 804 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, NJ, 201-533-8400

7. Pickled Mushrooms at Kabeer [vegan] - An assortment of woodsy specimens, pickled to piquancy, then heaped with shaved onions and fresh dill: It's a simple dish, but one that might convince you mushrooms are much better than meat. And the list of brews on tap at this indoor Russian beer garden -- steps away from a summer stroll on the boardwalk -- will be an added incentive. 1003 Brighton Beach Avenue, Brooklyn, 718-934-9005

6. Toasted Cheese Sandwich at Bark Hot Dogs - Yes, it's totally counter-intuitive that one of the best vegetarian dishes in the city would be at an unreconstructed palace of pure meat - but there you have it. The bread comes from a firm white Pullman loaf, the cheese is sharp cheddar, and the grill is smeared with real butter. Simple, yet perfect. 474 Bergen Street, Brooklyn, 718-789-1939

​The toasted cheese at Bark looks like the normal diner sandwich, only it's a million times better.

​Wear a bib for god's sake to eat the sabich sandwich at Taim.

5. Mock Duck Spicy Bamboo at Am-Thai Chili Basil Kitchen [vegan] - The mock duck is amazing at this tiny restaurant, a stone's throw from Green-Wood Cemetery. The texture is fibrous, dense, and dark, just like real duck, and stir-fried with green beans and bamboo shoots in a mellow coconut-milk sauce -- You just can't beat it. 359 McDonald Avenue, Brooklyn, 718-871-9115

4. "Corn" at Dirt Candy [vegan on request] - The entr?e called simply "corn" is a collage of stone ground grits, corn cream, pickled shiitakes, huitlacoche, and the cryptic, quasi-science chef "tempura poached egg." That egg is molten underneath, the grits are gloriously fatty, the huitlacoche provides earthy funk, and the mushrooms rescue the whole thing from putting you in a coma. 430 East 9th Street, 212-228-7732

3. Sabich Sandwich at Taim - Whether you give up and eat this pita-borne sandwich with a fork, or try the more difficult and messy task of hoisting it in your hands, the combination of egg and eggplant is beyond brilliant, especially when amplified with hummus, Israeli salad, parsley, and amba - an engagingly tart sauce of mango and fenugreek. 222 Waverly Place, 212-691-6101

2. Amazonian Mushrooms at Katmandu Spice [vegan] - This Brazilian recipe swamps a choice collection of 'shrooms in herbs and coconut milk, then adds a dab of dende - the fluorescent-orange palm oil beloved of Cariocans. Served with rice, toasted farofa (manioc meal), fried plantains, and a spicy vinegar sauce. 60-15A Woodside Avenue, Queens, 718-779-7475

1. Butter Masala Dosa at Dosa Hutt - The secret of this tiny place is volume. A small army of cooks concocts dosas by the dozens, and they're experts. The batter is mixed and fermented in-house, the fillings - curried potatoes studded with nuts and spices - cooked up daily, and the dosas griddle-cooked to crunchiness. The butter masala dosa is the menu's apex, soaked with extra ghee at the last minute. 4563 Bowne Street, Queens, 718-961-5897

Sapthagiri is great - if you get the thali, they'll give you as many refills on the little dishes as you want, plus 2 more chapati. of course, you get so much food to begin with that it's hard to finish what they give you. at $9.99 it's a great bargain.

I finally got around to trying Sapthagiri last Friday. I can't wait to go back; it was such a nice experience.

The food is mostly South Indian, so similar to some of what I've had at Dosa Hut, Dosa House, and a few of the other counter-style S. Indian places on Newark Ave. The quality, however, seems better. The sambar, for instance, has tender edible okra (unlike the woodlike pieces at Dosa Hut). The prices are a couple dollars more, perhaps, but it's more than worth it for the presentation and atmosphere. We had two different servers who were both beyond helpful. Also, the menu at Sapthagiri explains what things are in English, which is quite useful for those not familiar with this cuisine. (My early experiences at Dosa Hut basically involved me pointing to things on the menu and hoping they would be yummy because nothing is explained or translated and the counter staff is busy and not interested in explanations).

My party of four shared a variety of foods: dosas, curries, chili fritters, and iddly, all of which we found delicious. The waiter brought us a complementary nann and pistachio ice-cream at the end.

I mentioned the Village Voice article to the waiter (who may have been the owner), and he said he was happy for the review but bothered by the title. I understand. I guess they are trying to be snarky or edgy, but it doesn't even make sense. Most of what I tasted included onions.

New York Times chimes in:

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.co ... /03/what-were-reading-34/

What We?re Reading
By NICK FOX

Robert Sietsema has a reason for you to get on the PATH train ? Sapthagiri in Jersey City. ?The vast range of snacks and main dishes from several Indian vegetarian traditions is unmatched in the metropolitan area.?

===================================
Voice: Vegetarian Delights of NYC

Pix From Sapthagiri, a Vegetarian Indian Restaurant in Jersey City



Kanchipuram idly (weekends only) are turmeric-orange in color and come studded with cashew nuts, fresh ginger, and coriander leaf.

This week Counter Culture wigs out at Sapthagiri, a strictly vegetarian restaurant in Jersey City's Indian Square neighborhood, a three-block walk north of the PATH station at Journal Square. The vast range of snacks and main dishes from several Indian vegetarian traditions is unmatched in the metropolitan area.



​Decorated with tiny colored lights, the interior of the restaurant is comfortable and unfussy.

Even meat eaters will never miss the meat, and the food is uniformly well prepared and piquantly spiced. Here then, is a gallery of some of the dishes worth eating (with one exception) at Sapthagiri ("Seven Hills").



The delightful onion paratha arrives confetti'ed with aromatics.



Aloo bonda are nut-studded potato balls dipped in chickpea flour and fried.



Coconut uthappam is one of the oddities of the southern Indian menu, thicker than most uthappam and annealed with big shards of fresh coconut and cashews, and served with sambar and coconut chutney.



​Kadai Bhindi is typical of the southern Indian curries at Sapthagiri.



The mozzarella dosa is one dish you might want to avoid.



A condiment caddy featuring four tastes of southern India is available on request. The peanut chutney totally rocks.

No F*%#ing Onions at Jersey's Sapthagiri
Anger-making orbs and other delights at a veggie Indian restaurant

Village Voice
Robert Sietsema
Tuesday, Feb 2 2010

Ever since the local debut of the potato-stuffed crepe known as masala dosa at Madras Woodlands?a franchise from India that lurked near the U.N. in the late '70s?southern Indian vegetarian cooking has gradually become more available in the metropolitan area. Exploiting grain and lentils for their complex nourishment, it's the most advanced vegetarian cuisine in the world, supplementing earthy flavors with adventitious fermentation and a rainbow of chutneys. Moreover, the cuisine is so delicious and spice-intensive that no one misses the meat.

-------------------------------------------------
Caleb Fergerson
Dosa the good stuff: Sapthagiri
Details
Sapthagiri
804 Newark Avenue
Jersey City, New Jersey
201-533-8400
--------------------------------------------

In the interim, we've become familiar with a catalog of dosa variations, including the Mysore masala dosa (coated inside with fiery spices), the paper dosa (thinner and crunchier), and the rava dosa (substituting wheat for urad dal in the batter). We've even witnessed the birth of new dosas, such as the "cheese dosa" I ate recently, oozing mass-produced mozzarella and not really very good. Believe it or not, further surprises await us from the vegetarian cuisine of southern India.

Which is why I've become so fond of Jersey City's Sapthagiri ("Seven Hills"). The first thing that caught my eye on the menu was a house specialty called "pesarattu upma." Now, "upma" refers to my favorite South Indian dish, a savory farina laced with black mustard seeds, curry leaves, and cashews. It blows my mom's cream of wheat out of the water. Pesarattu upma uses this porridge, along with saut?ed onions and fresh green chilies, as the filling for a crepe made from mung beans, which gives the wrapper a grassy flavor. Also new to me was the so-called set dosa ($6.99), native to Karnataka in southwestern India: Deploying dosas as flatbreads rather than crepes, it consists of two floppy, well-buttered pancakes of smaller circumference than usual, served with coconut chutney, sambar, and a pur?ed vegetable curry.

Sapthagiri opened with little notice two years ago on a side street off Newark Avenue, the main drag of Jersey City's India Square. The restaurant is pleasantly decorated with strings of colored lights and allegorical paintings, and the staff is patient and helpful, even with the pickiest or most unknowledgeable diner. In addition to South Indian dishes, the bill of fare incorporates Mughal vegetarian food from the north, and even the stray Gujarati dish or two from the far west, on a menu that seeks to satisfy vegetarians from all over the country.

In fact, the front of the menu proclaims, "We serve Jain and Swaminarayan food," name-checking two religions headquartered in Gujarat, both of which eschew onions: the Jains, because the bulbs grow underground, and thus insects may be killed in their harvesting; the Swaminarayans, because onions and other alliums are thought to provoke anger and irritability. They may be right?medieval European philosophers also believed that onions stimulate choleric humors. But you don't have to avoid onions at Sapthagiri unless you want to: Many dishes on the menu make liberal use of them.

In addition to the dosa surprises detailed above, the menu contains many oddities worth trying. Bouncy and fun to eat, aloo bonda ($3.49) are perfect spheres of mashed potatoes shot with spices and fried in a chickpea batter, while paneer makni ($7.99) presents a pile of pressed-cheese boxcars bathed in a butter sauce usually reserved for tidbits of tandoori chicken. Shaped like miniature flying saucers, the plain idli dumplings tend to be denser and more flavorful than those at the dosa houses that line Newark Avenue. Several unusual types are offered, too, including Kanchipuram idli ($3.99), named after a town in Tamil Nadu and ramified with cashews, coriander, fresh ginger, and turmeric rhizomes, which confer a bright orange color.

Hopscotching around the menu, there's a version of uttappam that embeds the thick pancake with freshly grated coconut, making it almost like a dessert; a gigantic flatbread called bhatura far puffier than poori; a curry called gutti vankaya that immerses baby eggplants in a sauce of peanuts and tomatoes; and puliyogare, a tamarind-flavored rice casserole that I've seen nowhere else in town. Each selection comes with a pair of chutneys that vary according to where the dish originated: Cilantro signals a northern recipe, while coconut betokens a southern one.

In fact, the vast collection of freshly made chutneys is itself worth admiring at Sapthagiri. Jain-friendly dishes, for example, come with a diced-tomato chutney that resembles a French confit. If you ask your server nicely, you can also get a rotating stainless-steel caddy with four further condiments on it, all of them orange and two of them extra-hot. Who says you can't please everyone?

rsietsema@villagevoice.com

For more of our restaurant coverage,check out our food blog at Fork in the Road

I guess I'll be able to find it, but the article says it's NOT on Newark Avenue but on a side street (doesn't say which one), then at the end it gives a Newark Avenue address, which is inexplicably not part of the photograph.

Sapthagiri 804 Newark Avenue (corner of Liberty Avenue) Jersey City, NJ 07306 (201) 533-8400 www.sapthagiri.biz
View Larger Map Vegetarian (and Vegan) Delights of NYC: Pesarattu Upma at Sapthagiri in Jersey City Village Voice By Robert Sietsema Tuesday, Jan. 5 2010 @ 8:00AM ?Pesarattu upma is one of the vegetarian dishes hitherto-unseen in the region, making Sapthagiri well worth the visit. Instead of potatoes, the interior holds a secret surprise. A new restaurant featuring the vegetarian cuisines of north and south India has materialized in Jersey City's Little India. Not on Newark Avenue, but located on a side street, Sapthagiri offers nearly the full range of vegetarian Indian cuisines, including such southern specialties as masala dosa in its umpteen variations, curd rice, and gutti vankaya, the latter an unusual stew of baby eggplants in a mellow sauce incorporating pureed tomatoes and peanuts. From the northern roster come Mughal vegetable curries like alu gobi and mattar paneer. There are a plethora of breads, too, the most amazing of which is bhatura, which is like a poori times ten. The space is perhaps too well-lit, but also has an elegance denied many of the eating establishments that line Newark Avenue. While the northern and southern menus have become familiar to us in the last decade or so, variations keep popping up to hold our avid interest. At Sapthagiri, one of the principal additions to the vegetarian canon is pesarattu upma ($6.99), with a wrapper much like a dosa, except it's made out of ground mung beans insteal of ground rice and urad dal. I assume the fermentation process is similar. The difference lies in a darker and grassier taste in the pesarattu, which hails originally from Andhra Pradesh on the southeast coast of India. A disembodied thumb pries up the wrapper to reveal pesarattu's contents--cream of wheat!. The filling is different, too. Instead of the usual potato stuffing studded with cashews, onions, peas, and perhaps a shredded green chile or two. pesarattu is stuffed with the cream-of-wheat porridge called upma, one of the chief breakfast delights of southern India. Other occupiers of the interior of the pesarattu cylinder include slick, lightly sauteed onions and chiles. Pesarattu upma would be vegan except for some butter in the upma. There are plenty of vegan choices on the menu, however, such as bisi bele bath (Sounds like something you'd buy at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, doesn't it?), a pleasing assemblage of rice, lentils, vegetables, and spices; and avial, another vegetable assortment cooked in coconut milk and flavored with curry leaves and black mustard seeds. 804 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, 201-533-8400