This is the only restaurant in Tucson that serves authentic South Indian dishes

The first bite into a perfectly crisp dosa, a savory crepe native to the tropical terrains of South India, gently folded into a cylindrical shape and stuffed with turmeric-spiced potatoes and onions, is destined to fill your mouth with a burst of flavors — if done right.

At Spice Garden Indian Cuisine, the only Indian restaurant in the Tucson area that serves authentic South Indian dishes, founder and head chef Jayesh Patel hits the spot with each of those flavors — spice, earthiness, tanginess and a hint of sweet.

The four-year-old restaurant’s dosa pays homage to the local stalls tucked away in the nooks and crannies of South India from Bangalore to Pondicherry, with its delicate crunch on the outside and its soft, pillow-like consistency on the inside. Encircled by traditional condiments including sambar — a tomato-and-lentil-based soup filled with vegetables — and coconut chutney, it’s the ideal dish to begin your exploration into the not-so-mainstream delicacies of Indian cuisine.

“Let’s be honest, dosa is very famous,” said Patel on choosing to have dosa as part of the menu. “I know it’s South Indian, but all over India, dosas — different kinds of dosas — are very famous. So, dosa is something unique that can bring a lot of people in.”

For the most part in the West, Indian food centers around chicken tikka masala, butter chicken, samosas, garlic naan, biryani, mango lassi — most of which are native to the northern part of India. While these popular favorites are featured in Patel’s menu, Tucsonans are in for a treat when they realize Spice Garden, 5815 N. Arizona Pavilions Dr., is expanding the horizons of mainstream Indian cuisine.

“Well, any Indian restaurant you go (to), there are a few dishes that people want like chicken tikka masala, butter chicken,” said Patel. “Even if they don’t know anything about India, they know these things. Other than that, there are not many curries that people know, so, we (had) to keep those. The only thing we added in this menu was dosa from the start.”

While the dosa offered him an edge over other Indian restaurants in the area, Patel made sure his menu had the classics everyone is familiar with.

“I love Indian food and a lot of our company is in India, so we bring a lot of our guests here pretty regularly and they’re the real deal,” Hyte Johnson, a Spice Garden regular, said while dining with his colleagues Fred Serna and Jackson Owens. “Our colleagues from India tell us that they love their food too. So, you’re getting authentic food and it’s just amazing.”

Hayley Smith, a regular customer at Spice Garden, reiterated Johnson’s love for “the chicken dishes — like butter chicken, chicken tikka masala, cashew chicken” as well as “all sorts of naan and jasmine rice,” validating Patel’s approach of striking the balance between mainstream and unique dishes.

Dosa and idli: South India’s lifeblood

Spice Garden’s menu portrays the two most popular dishes considered synonymous with South Indian cuisine even in India — dosa and idli.

While both dishes are made with the same foundational ingredients — fermented rice and different lentils blended into a paste with a tinge of spices — dosas are flattened into a crepe-like consistency, while idlis are scooped into flat bun-like shapes and steamed until soft and fluffy.

“I like it a lot, it’s really, really good. (I have it) every month to couple months, kind of like a treat,” said Smith about the dosas and idlis.

The condiments eaten with both dishes are, once again, similar if not interchangeable — a dry curry of savory potatoes and onions, sambar, chutneys made out of coconut, coriander, green chilies and dry powders made from garlic, red chilies, groundnuts and more.

Patel, who learned the art of making dosas at a relative’s restaurant in Las Vegas, was an accounting graduate who came to the U.S. in 1999 and was introduced to the restaurant business through the relative. Making the move to Tucson in 2017, he decided to continue his journey in the restaurant business, finally opening Spice Garden in April of 2020 in the thick of the pandemic.

The restaurant initially opened only for takeout due to the lockdown, a move Patel wasn’t too happy about, saying the pandemic was “a big push back.” Three months later, they opened at 50% capacity abiding by COVID-19 regulations, after which they have been steadily building the restaurant’s reputation, said Patel.

However, while they started out in their comfort zone with all the mainstream favorites on the menu, Patel was clear about having dosas be part of the restaurant from the very beginning.

“(I’ve tried) lots of South Indian food in the U.S., like in Chicago, Atlanta, California, Las Vegas,” said Het, Patel’s nephew who works in the restaurant while pursuing his education at Pima Community College. “But this is the best dosa I’ve ever had.”

Spice Garden features a plethora of dosas and idlis. The plain dosas and idlis are classic, served with portions of sambar and chutneys on the side.

The sambar idli mix is a twist on the plain idli, in which three idlis are submerged in a generous serving of sambar and topped with tomatoes, onions, puffed rice and sev (deep-fried sticks made of chickpea flour and coated with spices).

“Some places have hard idlis, but this is softer,” said Het. “And the taste of the sambar — in India, it has to be tangy (in) flavor. (So) here, I actually found the taste of real South Indian food.”

In dosas, they serve masala dosa — plain dosa stuffed with turmeric-spiced potatoes. An added twist to that is the onion masala dosa which includes freshly chopped onions in the dosa batter.

Further, there is the Mysore dosa — plain dosa coated with a chutney made of garlic and red chilies on the inside — and the Mysore masala dosa, which adds spiced potatoes along with the chutney. Lastly, there is also the cheese dosa, a fusion dosa recipe which is served popularly across northern and central India.

The idli and dosa batter are made from scratch, said Patel. The process involves taking the fermented ingredients and grinding them in a stone grinder, where each batch makes enough batter for two weeks. The key is to make sure the batter is slowly fermented so the dosa turns out well, said Patel.

South Indian curries: Lesser-known favorites

In addition to the dosas and idlis, the South Indian menu also features distinctive curries, such as the chef’s special chicken made with the traditional “Chettinad-style gravy” native to Tamil Nadu in southern India, and the madras curry made with mustard, fennel, curry leaves and coconut.

In comparison to the North Indian curries which tend to have a richer flavor and texture, the South Indian curries bring a certain earthiness, while also having a sharper, spicier flavor.

Unlike other Indian restaurants, Patel said he doesn’t believe in fully preparing dishes ahead of time. This leaves room for adjusting the spice levels, catering to allergies, veganism and Jainism (a religion which preaches vegetarianism and forbids the consumption of root vegetables like onions and garlic).

While each dish offers a diverse range of flavors in the gravy, there are five basic gravy bases they use, said Patel.

One is spinach-based, one is tomato-based, two are tomato-onion-based and the last one is tomato-onion-cashew-based, said Patel. Patel also makes a paste for the dum biryani from scratch, as well as the sauce base for the Indo-Chinese dishes on the menu.

Pan-Indian specialties

Spice Garden’s diverse range of pan-Indian dishes includes appetizers such as onion bhaji or onion fritters, which are found all over India, as well as Indo-Chinese favorites such as gobi (cauliflower) manchurian, chicken 65, chilli paneer or chicken and garlic shrimp.

Vegetarians will have a ball as well, considering the menu features concoctions with different vegetables including baingan bharta, a smoked eggplant curry; jeera aloo, potatoes cooked with cumin and chilies; aloo gobi, spiced cauliflower and potatoes; and the classic dal tadka, a lentil curry tempered with dried red chilies, mustard, cumin and asafetida.

The experience of dining in Spice Garden brings an array of flavors to the palette, from the rich creaminess of the North Indian curries to the coconutty earthiness and spice of the South Indian dishes. While the whole menu is worth a try, make sure to add their dosas and idlis to your bucket list next time you’re in the area.