I WAS WATCHING a 'tweener-targeted documentary show the other night called A Walk in Your Shoes, in which kids from different backgrounds switch lives. In this episode Reuben, a boy who attends military school, switches places with Tucker, a student in a community-living school. In the end Reuben decides he feels most comfortable in the intensely rule-oriented, hierarchical military-school culture. Oh, and he thinks the food at the communal school – all vegetables, grown by the students – was yucky.

Move beyond the produce-worshiping paradise we call the Bay Area and the prevailing attitudes about vegetables (and vegetarianism) are decidedly hostile. Even within our borders it's easy to find restaurants with meat products in every single dish (a splash of chicken stock in the sauce, a pinch of bonito on the tofu, a packet of gelatin in the dessert can really ruin a vegetarian's day); hosts who, even knowing the dietary restrictions of their guests, lamely assert, "fish isn't really meat, is it?"; and packaged foods that sneak chicken fat into the most unusual places (barbecue potato chips, for example. Does there really need to be chicken fat in barbecue potato chips, for cryin' out loud?).

Still, the Bay Area is something of a safe haven for vegans, fruitarians, the lactose intolerant, and even lacto-ovo-pescetarians. And besides, I come to praise the vegetarian choices in the San Francisco Bay Area, not to bury them. From the pristine produce at the Berkeley Bowl to the vegan creations at Millennium to bean-and-rice burritos and Vietnamese sandwiches stuffed with tofu, what vegetarian would want to live anywhere else?

Especially not now, just as the dot-com boom – which brought immigrants from all over to participate in that '90s-era fad we call Trying to Find Housing in a Market that Has a Less-Than-1-Percent Vacancy Rate – is bearing fruit. Not economically, of course, but in the form of cuisines that arrived with the high-tech workers.

I started hearing about south Indian vegetarian restaurants in Sunnyvale a couple of years ago, thanks to Chowhound.com – that amazing network of devoted chow-seekers and sharers. Now, pretty much everything I know about the South Bay, I know because of repeated trips to Udupi Palace.

The Sunnyvale branch of Udupi Palace is part of a chain of south Indian vegetarian restaurants (others are in Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Fremont). The space is bright and lively, all hard surfaces that echo with the conversations of families, couples, and groups of friends that pack the place at mealtimes.

Udupi Palace was my first introduction to south Indian food. Udupi is a region on the southwest coast of India that attracts both tourists and pilgrims to its Krishna temple. Although I've been eating north Indian food for years, Udupi Palace's menu was almost utterly impenetrable to me. Iddly, dosa, vada, uthapam – what?

But after eating at Udupi Palace several times, it all became clearer. Iddly are flying saucer-shaped cakes of rice and lentil flour. Vada are southern India's answer to Krispy Kreme – savory little deep-fried donuts made with lentil flour. Dosa and uthapam are pancakes, the dosa made with rice flour, the uthapam (a little more substantial) with rice and lentil flour, wrapped around various fillings, like potatoes and peas or chilis.

My vegetarian partner – who gets boggled in the few restaurants that offer more than two or three vegetarian options – gave up trying to decipher the menu and has gone every single time with the thali – a platter of vegetable curries along with plain rice; a special rice; poori; the thin, superspicy sauce called sambar and an equally spicy soup called rasam; house-made pickles; yogurts; and a sweet.

The thali is always an amazing plate of food. It sings with heat and gives the Western diner a peek into a culture in which vegetables are front and center, not just an afterthought. One time we sampled a completely unfamiliar but utterly delicious poriyal of beets cooked with mustard seeds and shreds of coconut. Other times it's been the dal that's blown us away, or a rich, creamy curry with nuts.