Tirupathi Bhimas: What’s Vegetarian Editorial Review

Tirupathi Bhimas in Milpitas serves South Indian food with no meat and no fish on the menu. The restaurant calls its cooking authentic South Indian vegetarian, and it has done that near the Great Mall since 2004. Dairy appears all over the menu in ghee, butter, yogurt, and paneer, so this is a vegetarian kitchen, not a vegan one.

Dosas are the draw. The Dosa Corner lists more than a dozen versions of the thin rice-and-lentil crepe. You’ll find the Plain Dosa, the Masala Dosa filled with seasoned potato, and the Mysore Masala Dosa with spicy house chutney. Butter and ghee versions run crisper, and the Paneer Masala Dosa fills the crepe with shredded cottage cheese. The Set Dosa with Kuruma is a thicker, softer take. Every dosa arrives with chutney and sambar.

The rest of the menu goes wide. The Uthappam Corner offers soft rice-and-lentil pancakes topped with onions, tomatoes, chilies, or mixed vegetables. Under South Indian Favorites you can order idly with sambar, Sambar Vadai, Ghee Pongal, and Thayir Vadai in yogurt. The Appetizer list includes rasam, Medhu Vadai, vegetable pakoras, and Cut Mirchi, which are jalapeños fried in besan batter. Bhimas Specials add Idiyappam Kuruma, Pessarattu made from green gram, and Adai Avial, a Kerala specialty.

If you’re hungry, order a Bhimas Thali. The non-spicy version comes with sweet, poriyal, kootu, avial, kurma, mor kuzhambu, sambar, rasam, yogurt, white rice, chapati, pappad, and pickle. The spicy version swaps in kara curry and kara kuzhambu. The Business Lunch combo covers bisibelabath, vegetable biryani, yogurt rice, poriyal, kurma, a sweet, pappad, and pickle. There’s also an Indo Chinese section with fusion dishes, a kids corner, a dessert list, and drinks. Special rice dishes such as bisibelabath, a Karnataka classic of toor dal, rice, ghee, and vegetables, make a filling meal on their own.

For vegans, the options narrow. Plain dosa, idly, rasam, and several uthappams don’t need dairy, but cooks use ghee in many dishes. Some reviewers on third-party sites have mentioned hidden animal ingredients in dishes labeled vegan, so ask your server about ghee, butter, yogurt, and sauces before you order. Some dishes contain nuts or peanuts, and the menu flags those. The restaurant doesn’t publish details on its fryers or shared prep, and since every dish is meatless, the main cross-contact risk is dairy.

Timing matters here. The restaurant closes on Mondays. From Tuesday to Thursday it serves lunch from 11:30am to 2pm and dinner from 6pm to 9:30pm. Friday dinner runs until 10pm. On Saturday, lunch runs from 11:30am to 3pm and dinner from 6pm to 10pm. Sunday follows the same lunch hours with dinner ending at 9:30pm. The address is 1208 South Abel Street, and the phone number is 408-945-1010. You can order online for pickup or delivery.

Tirupathi Bhimas also caters weddings, corporate events, and dosa parties, and it holds seasonal events like a Diwali Vazhai Ilai Saapadu banana-leaf meal on November 8, 2026.

Bring a group and order a thali and two or three dosas to share. Add a rasam to start, and save room for dessert.