Looking for the perfect dosa

The Dosas in Mumbai restaurants are sweet. The sambhar is also sweet, or bland. The chana-coconut chutney is tasteless and often watery. Of course, very few serve gunpowder (malagapudi) here; one has to ask.

Lets start with the dosa. Instead of letting the daal and rice batter ferment on its own, the restaurants, especially the Udupi ones, add yeast immediately after making the paste. As we all know, yeast is more the bread kind of thing, it produces glucose as an end-product of fermentation, sweetening the batter and giving it the rose-like fragrance which is wholly inappropriate for dosa. Dosa needs that tangy, sour smell of fermentation, and a sour and sharp taste.

Now the sambhar. They make it mostly with tomatoes here, with tamarind making a guest appearance, or not at all. And the masala is not quite OK - too little dhania powder and hing, too much of chili powder and SUGAR!! OMG! Its terrible, the sweetness of it all!

Chutney - well! the word itself a touch of onomatopoeia about it - chhhhuttt- nee! the chhhhutt is the mouth-watery click of the tongue against the back of the teeth. And look what we get - the blandest possible paste of insipid nothingness - no tang of the green chillies, no back-of-the-throat sensation of the ginger, no roundedness of the coconut milk and the faint nuttiness of ground chana daal.

The tiny joint on Dadar TT, a few shops before Parsi Dairy makes it the way I like it. Crisp but thick dosa, made from proper sour and salt batter. The sambhar and chutney come in small bowls. The moment you finish any, the waiter will replace it with another. You suddenly feel that the sambhar and the chutney are precious - not to be lavished upon yokels. The sambhar is not the best (you can have better in Radhakrishna in Andheri West opposite Shopper's Stop); but the chutney!!! Ooooh! exquisite! The consistency is just right - a bit of the solids and enough gravy to soak your dosa into. The coconut is not ground down mercilessly into a gooey paste, but retains the granularity and hence the juices. There is ginger and green chillies - plus a hint of garlic and tiny bits of coriander stalks. Its just perfect! Try it.