Dear Anna,
Gosh, it’s been … 2 years since I last posted on the blog. I
suppose I’ve been busy in the meantime: finishing graduate school, getting
married, working. That reminds me, I should probably update my bio on the left
side bar, hm?
I thought I would herald my return to the blog with a
restaurant review – Dosa in San Francisco, specifically Dosa on Fillmore (there’s
also a Dosa on Valencia). But first, the story. My good friends J and J (I
figured I would keep it limited to initials since this is a blog and not
Facebook) live in the Bay Area, and they are foodies as well. On a visit last
year, they took Husband and I to an Indian restaurant called Dosa, and I have
to say it’s astoundingly delicious and unlike any Indian food you’ve probably ever
had before.
The Interwebs at Wikipedia tells me that dosa is “a
fermented crepe or pancake made from rice batter and black lentils … and is a staple
dish in the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and
Tamil Nadu.” Uttapam is a thicker pancake with toppings like onions, chiles,
tomatoes and spices are cooked into the batter. I’m no expert, but I think the
kormas, paratha, roti, and other dishes in which we used to drown our Cornell
studying sorrows and typically think of as “Indian food” is northern Indian
cuisine.
So, continuing the story: our friends J and J got married
earlier this month, and Husband and I flew in to San Francisco for the wedding.
(May I just say that in our experience, it’s a lot more fun to be guests at a
wedding versus being the marrying couple.) We made it a point to go back to
Dosa while we were there… well actually, it was more like a “hurry-up-and-get-through-baggage-claim-because-we’re-having-dinner-at-Dosa-now”
kind of point.
The restaurant itself is quite beautiful, with tables both
upstairs and downstairs and at the bar, in that sexy urban restaurant kind of
way.
I can’t quite remember if we ordered both dosas AND uttapams
during our first visit, but it was the uttapams that we remembered. At the
restaurant, you can order a chef’s selection of five different uttapams (South
Indian Moons) if you have a hard time making your choice. And you can get both entrée-sized
dishes or small plates of meat, fish, and vegetable dishes. The small plates
are particularly nice if you, like us, just want to taste EVERYTHING.
I’m trying to think how to describe an uttapam to you … all
the descriptors say “pancake,” but that’s like saying that a loaf of ciabatta
fresh out of an oven in Tuscany is bread; technically true but misses something
important. The texture is dense and moist, with pops of flavor from the
toppings and spices.
*sigh*
Too bad this restaurant is 750 miles away from me in Arizona
and 2,400 miles away from you in Ohio.
So… when can we go? =D
Love,
Becky
http://dosasf.com/fillmore_home.htm
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