We were in need of a place to quickly refuel between two scheduled museum visits, and Saravana Bhavan ticked all the boxes. It was very much a cheap and cheerful lunch spot chosen for convenience, and it wouldn’t be somewhere that featured in my ‘must-visits in New York’ list. The Happy Cow reviews indicated that vegan options were labelled on the menu, but I could not see any such labels. I’ve since been assured that they are there, they’re just hard to see. We all ordered dosas, as I remembered that the other Happy Cow diners had eaten those so they seemed like a safe bet. I’m always thankful to people who keep Happy Cow up to date!

I absolutely love a dosa, and this was a pretty good one, nice and thin and crispy. I ordered mine with a potato and onion filling, and found the potato a bit greasy and the onion disappointingly raw when I’d expected it to be fried and softened. Still, it was tasty enough and it fuelled me up for the afternoon. I wasn’t sure which of the accompaniments would be vegan, so I stuck with the dahl, which was pleasant but unremarkable.

This restaurant is close to the American Museum of Natural History, so it’s very convenient for a lunch break from there. As always, we did not have time to explore the museum in its entirety so we prioritised our favourite sections: minerals and dinosaurs. The Natural History Museum in Vienna really got me into minerals, to Dr HH’s frustration and delight. Delight because his chemistry background is in minerals, and frustration because he took me to a mineral exhibition on our first date and I had totally forgotten it! Still, better late than never when it comes to developing an interest in minerals.

Nobody needs convincing to love a dinosaur exhibition though! It was a really fun and quite extensive collection – though, unsurprisingly, much busier than the mineral hall. Justice for minerals!

Are you a dosa fan? Or, more importantly, a minerals fan?!