Tag Archives: south india

An Ode to My Favourite Food – Dosa

Food is a huge part of the overall travel experience. Every place in the world has its signature dishes – food that is made better there than anywhere else. Whether it is the falafel of Amman or the kulcha of Amritsar or the vada pav of Mumbai or the croissant of Paris – once you’ve eaten them in their home ground, everywhere else seems inferior. Then there are foods that are adopted by different people who give their own twists to them. Today, we talk about one such food.

I woke up this Sunday with a craving. Sadly, we didn’t have the raw material to make it at home. And we couldn’t go out as other plans were already made. Basically, this blog is not a story of how I went about successfully fulfilling my craving. In fact, I take you through most of the versions I’ve encountered and how I loved (almost) all of them! This is one thing I could eat every meal of the day, most days of the week. Yes, I’m talking about the DOSA!

Dosa is a dish that instantly connects me to my childhood. My mother used to make the best dosas in the world – crispy but not lethal (yes, some dosas can be lethal – we’ll come to that), with the perfect amount of ghee and paired with some amazing versions of the versatile coconut chutney. No matter which restaurant we went to, nothing could beat this simple yet elegant version of the dosa. Over the years, my mother has changed her style of dosas but I’ve figured out how to replicate the OG version. Now, my favourite “nostalgic version” of dosa is the one that I make <humble brag>.

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One of the most stereotyped cities in India – Chennai

One of the popular discussions in college was – which city would you like to live in and work? A more popular one was – where you would NOT like to live. And the answer almost invariably used to be Chennai (the word would be uttered with a nightmarish expression).

The reasons ranged from the heat to the smelly beach. I’ve lived in Chennai for close to a year in the past. Yes, it’s really hot. And yes, the beach is kinda smelly. But I never felt a kind of repulsion as I saw with a lot of my friends. I guess it has to do with the stereotype where every city in south India is Madras and every south Indian is a Madrasi! So when I got a chance to work here for a couple of weeks, I decided to take a look again. And here’s the Chennai I got to see.

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