Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Banjara Indian Cuisine staff members display dishes prepared in Southern Indian style--the restaurant's specialty.
Banjara's offerings help make it a cultural center
By Pam Marino
Banjara Indian Cuisine is more than just a restaurant; in its two years in Sunnyvale, it has become an unofficial cultural center for the area's Indian population.
The restaurant's owners, Lu Muvva and Srinivas Reddy Vanga, sponsor Indian films at the Sunnyvale Town Center AMC movie theater. They sell tickets to Indian events all over the Bay Area. They hope soon to have live music at Banjara on weekends. And they have a satellite dish and big projection TV that picks up Indian television, as well as live cricket matches. The matches bring in transplanted British and Australian residents, as well.
Muvva and Vanga specialize in Southern Indian food. The owners said many local Indian restaurants do not feature as much Southern Indian food because it involves more steps to create, with many different spices. Banjara also has a large vegetarian menu.
A generous lunch buffet, $7.85 for all you can eat (and there's a lot to eat), pulls in people from around the valley to Banjara, in the Sunnyvale Town and Country Shopping Center.
The buffet features a menu that changes daily. There are two appetizers to choose from, salad, soup, fruits, four vegetarian entrees, four meat entrees, three kinds of rice, four kinds of dessert, steamed rice cakes and soft drinks. And the wait staff brings fresh bread right to the tables.
Some of the more popular dinner dishes include appetizers like vegetable samosa, made up of two crisp wheat patties stuffed with potatoes and green peas, mixed vegetable pakora (a kind of chickpea dumpling) and chicken sang grilla, a fried chicken with spices and soy sauce. In terms of entrees, customer favorites include eggplant curry, malai kofta, homemade cheese cubes cooked in cream and spices, bindi masala, spicy okra curry and several chicken dishes, either spicy or mild. The Banjara Chicken, cooked in a nut sauce created at the restaurant, is the house specialty, the owners said.
There are seafood entrees, rice entrees, called biryani, and tandoori entrees, dishes that were cooked in a clay tandoori pot. There are numerous choices in Indian breads, several desserts and a wide variety of Indian drinks, coffees and teas.
The prices are for either a la carte, or for a complete dinner, but even a la carte items come with rice and bread. A complete dinner comes with dhal curry, soup, rice, bread, pickles and a dessert. A la carte items cost between $7.50 and $9.95, with seafood and other entrees going as high as $10.95. A complete dinner usually costs just $2 more. Muvva and Vanga said the portion sizes are generous.
Banjara is a large restaurant, capable of seating up to 300 people. It's broken up into rooms, so the restaurant can have two banquets at one time, one for 150 people and another for 75. There are two dance floors and a full bar. The restaurant also has a D.J. for parties.
Banjara Indian Cuisine is at 407 Town and Country Village in Sunnyvale. Phone 737-9842. The restaurant is open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. for lunch and from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. for dinner.
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
