Indian Food in St. Petersburg, FL: Discover Local Favorites at Tabla

Roosevelt Boulevard North is airport traffic, office parks and plazas you only notice when you need something in one, which is a strange place to find the Indian food in St. Petersburg, FL worth a detour. Tabla Indian Cafe is at 10324 Roosevelt Blvd N, in the Ibis Walk plaza.

The important thing to understand before you read the menu is that this is a cafe rather than a curry house. This guide covers what that changes, what the street food counter costs, and why the sweets are the cheapest thing in the building.

Quick Summary

Tabla Indian Cafe St. Petersburg is at 10324 Roosevelt Blvd N, St. Petersburg, FL 33716, phone +1 (727) 742-8825. It opens at 11:00 AM every day and runs straight through with no afternoon break. Vada Pav is $7.99, Chole Kulche is $10.99, and sweets start at $1.50. The weekend Deluxe Plate is $14 vegetarian and $17 non-vegetarian.

A Cafe, Not a Curry House

Some nights you want a tablecloth and a tandoor. Some afternoons you want something eaten standing up with a coffee next to it.

Tabla Indian Cafe St. Petersburg is built for the second one. The menu runs breakfast, street food, burgers, momos, fries, bowls and a sweets counter, which is a different proposition to the sit-down Indian restaurant in St. Petersburg you might be picturing.

The structural giveaway is the hours. This location opens at 11:00 AM every day of the week and does not close in the afternoon, which means two o'clock is a perfectly ordinary time to eat here.

Ten hours straight on a Monday is not something most kitchens on Roosevelt Boulevard attempt.

Breakfast, Served from Eleven

Breakfast at Tabla St. Petersburg is a lunchtime proposition, because the doors open at eleven. Treat it as the menu for a late start rather than an early one.

The Egg Paratha Roll at $8.99 is the one that explains the whole concept. A paratha is a flatbread, and wrapping a two egg omelette in one gives you an Indian breakfast you can eat with one hand in a car park.

Masala Bhurji at $8.99 is scrambled eggs cooked with masala rather than finished with it, and an aloo paratha can be added for a dollar.

South Indian Filter Coffee is $4.99. It is brewed slowly through a metal filter and served strong, so it is a different drink to the Starbucks coffee also on the board at $4.50.

The Indian Street Food Counter

Here is the section of the Tabla St. Petersburg menu that gives the place its character, and it is listed under exactly that name.

Vada Pav at $7.99 is the order to pay attention to. It is a spiced potato fritter in a soft bun, the single most eaten street snack in Mumbai, and it is not a thing most Indian menus in Florida bother to carry.

Chole Kulche at $10.99 is the biggest plate in this section. Spiced chickpeas with a soft leavened bread, and the dish that turns up on breakfast and street food lists on the same menu.

The parathas are stuffed flatbreads cooked in a clay oven, which is why they cost more than a plain bread and less than a main course. Aloo is potato, gobi is cauliflower, and lachha is layered rather than filled.

Snacks, Fries and the Three Dollar Samosa

The finger food board at Tabla Indian Cafe St. Petersburg is where a visit stops being a meal and starts being grazing.

• Samosa, 2 pieces, $3.00

• Masala Fries, $5.00

• Chilli Garlic Fries, $6.00

• Chicken Tenders, $7.00

• Kurkure Momos, $8.00

Two samosas for $3.00 is the cheapest hot food in the building. It is also the easiest thing to add to an order that is already placed.

Kurkure Momos at $8.00 are the outlier worth explaining. Momos are dumplings from the Himalayan north, and this version is fried for crunch rather than steamed, served with a spicy dip.

Chaat runs alongside at a different price point, with Aloo Tikki Chaat and Samosa Chaat both at $11.99. Both are built the same way, with chickpeas, sweet yogurt and house chutneys over the top.

Build your Own, $12 for a Bowl and $8 for a Wrap

Some days you do not want to read a menu. You want to point at things. 

Tabla St. Petersburg prices that two ways:

Four dollars separates them, and what it buys is volume rather than a different kitchen. The wrap is lunch you carry. The bowl is lunch you sit down with.

For anyone ordering Indian food in St. Petersburg, FL for a table where nobody agrees, this is the part of the board that ends the conversation fastest.

The Deluxe Plate Only Runs at Weekends

This is the one time this cafe behaves like a full restaurant, and it is easy to miss. 

The Deluxe Plate is a weekend menu, priced at two levels:

Three dollars is the whole gap between the vegetarian and the non-vegetarian plate, which is a narrower spread than most places put between the two.

If you have been meaning to try the butter chicken at Tabla Indian Cafe St. Petersburg, the weekend is when it appears as a plate rather than a filling.

Go on a Saturday if that is what you came for. On a Tuesday the answer at this Indian street food in St. Petersburg is the counter.

Sweets Priced in Single Dollars

Here is the part of the Tabla St. Petersburg menu that surprises people, and it is the last thing most of them look at.

Nine sweets at two dollars or less. Motichoor Ladoo is made from fine fried chickpea flour pearls soaked in cardamom syrup. Kaju Katli is ground cashew and sugar, cut into diamonds. Milk Cake is dense caramelised fudge with a roasted flavour.

Sweet Fresh Paan at $3.50 is the one to finish on. Paan is a betel leaf folded around sweet fillings and eaten in one bite at the end of a meal, which is how the course is meant to work.

Drinks sit in the same range. Masala Chaas is $4.50, Mango Lassi is $5.50, Fresh Coconut and Disco Melon are $6.99 each, Spicy Guava is $7.50 and Lychee Basil is $7.99.

How to Order Food Online from Tabla St. Petersburg

The cafe format assumes half the orders are leaving, and there are three ways in.

• Order food online through the Toast ordering page linked from the Tabla St. Petersburg location page

• Pickup, listed as order and collect

• Delivery, listed to the surrounding Pinellas area

• Call +1 (727) 742-8825 to check anything before you order

Ordering direct keeps the prices listed above. Third party delivery apps add their own margin, and on a $10.99 plate that difference is real money.

Finding Tabla Indian Cafe St. Petersburg

Tabla Indian Cafe St. Petersburg is at 10324 Roosevelt Blvd N, St. Petersburg, FL 33716, phone +1 (727) 742-8825.

The location lists itself as convenient for guests coming from:

• Clearwater

• Pinellas Park

• Largo

• Seminole

• Safety Harbor

• Dunedin

• Palm Harbor

• Tarpon Springs

• Oldsmar

• Kenneth City

Sunday is the short day, closing at 8:00 PM rather than 9:00 PM or 10:00 PM. A nine o'clock Sunday arrival is an hour too late.

Before the Paan Goes In

A vada pav eaten at two in the afternoon with masala fries on the side, a ladoo bought almost as an afterthought for a dollar fifty, and a folded paan on the way out, is a specific kind of Tuesday that Roosevelt Boulevard does not otherwise offer. Tabla Indian Cafe St. Petersburg opens at 11:00 AM every day, the street food counter starts at $7.50, and the sweets start at $1.50.

Call +1 (727) 742-8825 or order food online from Tabla Indian Cafe St. Petersburg, and add two samosas to whatever you were already getting.