Growing up in London it was never difficult to find a curry house, but only when I was older did I realize that most of the “Indian” restaurants weren’t Indian at all, but owned and operated by Bangladeshis and Pakistanis.  I was told once that the food served in London’s curry houses, unlike that in Bradford or the West Midlands, had more in common with the cuisine of Sylhet (a city in northern Bangladesh) than that of any part of India.  That was certainly my experience when I first went to India in 1979 and failed to find any of the dishes I had grown used to in London.  It took me a while to realize that, if I dug more deeply in London, I could find authentic regional Indian food without too much difficulty.  In fact, less than a mile from where I grew up, I could find several restaurants (in Drummond Street in Euston) that specialized in the vegetarian dishes of South India and one of its staples: dosai.

A dosa is a thin pancake made from a fermented batter consisting mainly of rice and urad beans.  The pancakes are usually stuffed with spicy vegetables and served with sambhar (a lentil broth) and some type of fiery chutney.  They’re a staple of South Indian cuisine but can now be found in many regions.  Whenever I return to India, one of the first things I do is to find somewhere that serves dosai for breakfast.  Watching a chef ladle the batter on to the griddle, spreading it thinly to make the pancake as crispy as possible, folding in the spicy vegetables – this has become a little ritual for me.  The texture and flavors of a dish that most Indians think of as little more than inexpensive, fast food somehow conjure up for me great memories of India … and London.