South Indian is best! My favourite thattu dosa at Mallu Republic at St Inez Circle and Siddhi’s at Dona Paula.
By Tara Narayan
I FELL in love with south Indian breakfast and tiffin fare long, long ago in my old home town of Penang where there’s a sizeable south Indian community settled. Where ever there is a south Indian community you will find the most familiar and popular Udupi fare of various kinds of idli and dosa.
If you’re asking me I consider a lot of the south Indian fare healthy food and there’s nothing which please me more than to start the day these days with a plate of idli or thattu dosa. What’s that? Thattu dosa are more or less synonymous with set dosa and most times down south India they arrive in a set of three thick, spongy pancakes served on a banana leaf which adds to the harm of relishing them to heart’s content.
The best of thattu or set dosa are made of red rice or ukde (parboiled rice), urad dal, and fenugreek seeds added in small measure for added flavour…all soaked overnight before being ground to a batter and left to ferment. Some folk also add a hand full of red/white rice flakes (poha) when grinding the batter for an even more wholesome flavour I suppose.
The thattu or set dosa batter is light and fluffy and when spread atop a lightly oiled cast iron pan they need to be cooked only one side. They are truly sublime dosa of Kerala origin and come with a range of chutneys of coconut, or tomato-garlic, or green coriander-mint leaves — some chutneys boast of freshly grated coconut while others prefer roasted gram dal to give the greens a firmer body. The chutneys are supurb when made with a gentle hand and go with the these thick range of south Indian dosa series.
Of course down South there’re several kinds of dosa which are also called dosha (Malayalam) or dosai (Tamil) and sometimes “thosai!: Who doesn’t love dosa be they thin and crispy or thick and spongy…most of us are dosa-lovers and familiar with the usual traditional plain thin crispy range of dosa, rava dosa, with or without a filling of curried potato in them. The Mysore dosa comes laced with spicy red chutney…there are the loni dosa (with sabudana as one of the ingredients in the batter). The Devanagari dosa from a town of the same name in Karnataka are also famous and come laced with white butter. This is to say there are dosa and dosa down south India where it’s a world of idli and dosa.
For same reason these days in Goa I go looking for thattu dosa, also called thattukada dosa sometimes because they are smaller rounded off affairs or so to speak. The ones at Mallu Republic are the best I find followed and a meal deal for Rs80, while the ones at Siddhi Pure Veg Udipi Restaurant at Dona Paula on a good day will come flecked with grated carrot and white sesame seeds to beguile the senses! Siddhi is also one of the few places you will find neer dosa or water dosa (delicately lacy fine rice dosa), they also do a most agreeable crisp rava dosa.
A set of three thattu dosa are a bit of a too much but that’s the only dish in which they observe tradition! Down south India and in Mysore I remember the early morning eateries serving three in a set be it idli or thattu dosa or medhuvada and they come with two chutneys, and a genuinely veggie redolent sambar. It’s a bit of a too much heaven but morning times are when one is at one’s hungriest! After that it doesn’t matter whether I eat any more or not for the rest of the day.
RE-DISCOVERING ECLAIRS!
ON my morning and evening daily route to the Goa Medical College & Hospital to visit with a patient, I get tempted to veer off the main highway route to discover charming new cafeterias. And since Christmas is already in the air and of all Goa’s magnificent confectionary offering I thought I’d share this – for I have the softest of corners for a good éclair. Once a week I feel like buying them.
No doubt the Loutalim-based Jila Bakery’s eclairs are time tested and my favourite; but recently I discovered crème eclairs at a few more places closer to home. Eclairs are such enchanted lightweight affairs for the palate! I mean one should have one at a time and no more to truly remember them.
Gauri Karkal (nee Dempo) of Pastry Cottage has been doing eclairs (Rs180 per packet of six) every Friday and I pick them up sometimes when I remember, these are the usual sort of turban-styled traditional eclairs filled with vanilla-flavoured golden custard. A few months ago at Ralph Prazeres and Stacy Gracias’ Padaria Prazeres at Caranzalen in Panaji there were these cigarillo-styled eclair beauties…brushed ever so delicately with the dark chocolate. Only a highly skilled patisserie chef could do these, they’re so delicately divine but gone in two or three bites (Rs150 each). Eclairs may be filled with creamy golden curstard or fine crème anglaise, they’re too good.
I suppose pastry connoisseurs love eclairs for quite a few patisserie outlets are doing them now. Next I saw them at this place called Sanofe café just where Alto Santa Cruz, down a long winding back lane close to the GMC…these cigarillo eclairs are delicious too (Rs45 each). But no doubt about it, if I could easily do so I would go all the way down south to Loutalim’s Jila Bakery to get eclairs…on order they also do eclairs with liqueur-laced custard oozing out of them. I used to order bol sans rival (cake without rivals) and Jila Bakery eclairs on birthdays once upon a time!
Nowadays, Sanofe is just a little way off on my way to the GMC, I have taken to dropping by for three things: either a custard berliner (Rs80) or a cigarillo éclair (Rs45) or a bottle of oat milk (Rs149). Check out Sanofe, they also have amazing lemon cheese cake and I like the looks of the croissant sandwiches…I don’t know why nobody does egg rolls or chicken pies of old anymore!
Funny or not funny, at the GMC seniors ward I see Dr Edwin Gomes urging patients to eat, eat, eat more protein (for they are malnourished and anaemic patients all), and here am I told constantly to stop eating or one of these days my heart will go pop. Don’t laugh. Eating is a serious emotional issue with women mostly but also men increasingly and diabetes a very real reason for over-consumption and lack of exercise.
The good life is so good in Goa that it leads the country in being the capital of diabetes at 26.4%. Make a note of that and making sweeping changes in your eating habits – if you can, from today!