dosa

last night i returned to dosa to give it a second chance. for those of you who don't know dosa is the only south indian restaurant in san francisco; it opened up earlier this year. it is named after a south indian dish called "dosa". dosas are somewhat like crepes, but are usually bigger and have a spicy filling in the middle. you typically dip your dosa in either sambar or a coconut chutney. i went the first week dosa opened with VERY high hopes because i love south indian food.

note: some might think i have sort gone overboard with indian food in general since geoffrey and i visited ryan in india one and half years ago. but i don't see how that can possibly be a bad thing except listening to geoffrey complain if i make indian food more than once in a month.

so, anyway i had high HIGH HIGH hopes for dosa when i went earlier this year but sadly i was not blown away. i thought the portions were small compared to what i have had at other places in the east and south bay and also dosa is far more expensive. also, i really didn't appreciate the look, or feel of the restaurant. as a result of this first trip to dosa, i wrote a review on yelp, giving dosa only two out of five stars. one of the owners of dosa immediately wrote to me asking me to return and try them again.

last night i finally made it back. it's been a long time coming. geoffrey and i met up with our friend tommy and only had to wait about 20 minutes. i have heard horror stories about the wait and was expecting more like an hour. as soon as we were seated, i immediately noticed the noise level. i don't really know what dosa can do about this but it's too loud in the restaurant. sometimes, i could barely hear geoffrey or tommy and i felt like i had to yell a little bit (and i talk loud as it is).

we started out by ordering the potato croquettes. the plate came out which just two, but they were a decent size and enough for three. we also orderd the south indian mung sprout salad. this was my favorite part of the entire meal. i loved the crunchy mung spouts mixed in with tomato, cucumber, chiles, ginger, and lettuce - dressed lightly in oil with cumin and other spices.

for my main entree i had the chile and coriander uttapam. my mouth was on fire in a good way and i ate almost the entire dish which was pretty big. i did think the sambar was a little to thick and i also found the coconut chutney to be somewhat flavorless. the coconut chutney is usually my favorite dipping sauce and last night i barely touched mine.

geoffrey and tommy both had the chatni masala dosa. i had never heard of this type of dosa before. i guess sometimes it has a ridge gourd in it, but last night the chutney featured eggplant. i can't really say much about this dish because i actually didn't try geoffrey's. i can say that the dosa itself looked more like a crepe you could get at ti couz. i thought this was strange because dosas are typically larger than this and also more cripy toward the outer edges of the dosa. they don't usually start getting the moosy texture until you move in towards the filling. however, like i said, i didn't taste this - i only tried to absorb a little bit of what geoffrey and tommy said.

i did enjoy the food i ate better this time. i increased my rating on yelp from two to three (out of five) star. probably, two was a little harsh now that i think about it. so overall i would actually give dosa three starts if i could go back in time. the reason i can't give it five is first of all the dining room is way too loud. also we spent close to 75 dollars total, or 25 each. note, you can get a bigger dosa plus appetizer for about 10 dollars cheaper (if not more) in the east bay.

i complained about the price in my first yelp review of dosa and the owner told me to consider their location and the style of the restaurant. and, yes i can agree dosa does not have the cafeteria/no style/boring thing going on that can be typical of some indian restaurants - dosa is indeed decorated with a more hip vibe. dosa is dark, with a lot of dark red, and nice lighting overhead. however, i think there is a way to make a restaurant look and feel nice without having to make the cost of food suffer.

today i wrote to the owner again to tell him about my latest experience. i once again brought up the cost issue. this time he told me that restaurants in sf have to pay servers a hourly wage of almost 9 dollars an hour (i wasn't aware of this) and also he brought up the style difference between dosa compared to vik's or udupi. he also informed me that his staff, some of who have worked in kitchens at updupi, are paid a higher living wage. when he tells me this sort of information i can understand their prices being higher but still i have to think they are making a killing charging 10 dollars for a masala dosa and 7 dollars for idli sambar (now that's just crazy).

one last thing, dosa only offers three curries. two of these have meat and the one veggie currie is channa masala (which is a north indian dish and is so typical of indian restaurants). i am disappointed that dosa doesn't offer some of the more exciting curries and other veggie dishes you can get in south india. when geoffrey and i were in kerala with ryan, we had a thali almost everyday. we also had some amazing vegetarian food in ernakulam, outside of cochin. and, not to mention the menu at a vegetarian restaurant would have an overwhelming amount of items to choose from and i wanted to try them all! i want a restaurant like this to make it's way into the bay area. i know i can get a thali in the east or south bay, but i want even more exciting and different dishes!

with all of this said, i can say i am glad i went back to dosa and gave it another try. if they get some new things on their menu i might try it again down the road. however, for now i think i will just stick with getting dosas in the east bay (since i work in berkeley mon-fri). i don't have a problem with a restaurant not having a hip atmosphere as long as the food is outstanding and a good deal.