Currying favour with girls

Restaurants are increasingly decidedly girlie. To name a few: Nobu, Sumosan, Zuma, Blakes, Osia, Tartine, East@West, Itsu, and anything touched by Will Ricker. Light is the theme of many admirably complex menus now, not just restaurants in SW3.

Club Gascon did the small courses thing but with masses of foie gras, making it light lunching for blokes. Their new place, Le Cercle, which opens in April, will do the same but in a lady-pleasing way - less foie gras, more fish and vegetables.

At 1 Lombard Street, a decidedly City-blokey Michelin-starred gaff, there's a three-course bikini-diet menu. Shumi dumped the carbs and lightened up Italian. Yatra does a 40-minute yoga session followed by an Ayurvedic lunch on Thursdays. The brilliant Karim Haider at Fakhreldine has no truck with the heavy Lebanese food of old. Eating out is good for girls at the moment, and good for beating the obesity statistics.

Yoga Jane, veggie obviously and incredibly fit, loves South Indian food - the choice of the ladylike curry lover. The food at Sagar is South Indian, more specifically the vegetarian cuisine of Karnataka and its famous foodie city Udupi.

Sagar is good, and tables packed with smart Indians were the first tell-tale sign. Yoga J. said, 'This place is full of healthy positive people who don't like death and blood.' The interior is light-wood panelling, more Swedish furniture showroom than Brick Lane's headache carpets. You could come for dinner here and not feel you were getting the full ethnic experience, until the delightfully low bill arrives.

The onion bhaji was so far removed from the shiny dark brown balls the name conjures up, that it barely deserves comparison. It had the mellowness of coconut, chilli warmth and, while fried and dry and matt to look at, the flour had coriander seed in it to give it a zesty spiciness.

Sev puri is 'classic South Indian beach food', said Yoga J. The sev part was a tasty little salty bite of deep-fried carbs on top of a sort of deep-fried, crisp chapati-type thingy with lots of other flavourful elements - tamarind, coriander, chutney, yoghurt. Yoga J, who knows about these things, said, 'They really know what they're doing.' We had two dosas - the paper-thin, fried, rice-and-lentil pancakes of the region, which come with fillings, usually based around potato and onion.

The use of the word frying is so wrong here, for the Sagar kitchen makes frying as healthy as steaming, but the sweet, crispy edges of brown are undeniably out of the frying pan. The South Indians do a sort of pizza, 'uthappams', which is a soft rice-and-lentil base topped with fresh vegetables and spices, which burst on the tongue. The rice was a revelation, too - cooked with fresh lemon juice or sweet with allium.

We had a set pudding akin to panacotta or even junket, made with yoghurt, cardamom, rose water and turmeric. The sourness of the yoghurt, the metallic tang of turmeric, the sweet, delicate rose, the exotic cardamom - there was so much going on, yet it was an entirely dignified and simple dish.

Yoga J. took charge of ordering weird soya and acorn-like brews to follow our meal. I didn't like any of them much, but this was a personal thing. I find it hard to find fault with Sagar.

Sagar
King Street, London, W6 9JT