My connection with Kerala food is an old one. We had some good Malayali neighbours, but I had more than my share of Kerala food in a small eatery called Shridharan in Gole Market. You didn’t really get the Kerala staples there, but Shridharan did a mean mutton fry. And his mutton dosa was simply delicious.
The dosa came to my mind in Kochi. I had gone there to attend a chefs’ competition – but more of that on another day – and was led to a well known dosa restaurant there called Pai Dosa. My able guide was a foodie-journo whose parents live in Kochi. And every time she visits them, I think she does a quick dosa recce at Pai’s.
The actual name is 36 Pai Brothers (MG Road, EKM, Phone: 0484-2374879 and 9995566778). I am not sure how the prefix 36 got attached to the name, but perhaps it was because when they opened the restaurant 30 years ago, they had 36 varieties of dosas. Now they have 120 – and you expect it to go up every year.
How can they have 120 varieties, you ask? Very easily, just the lasun section – dosas flavoured with garlic – has 20 kinds of fillings such as lasoon duck egg onion, lasoon duck egg onion tomato, lasoon tomato and lasoon masala. The cashew section has nine kinds – from the plain cashew roast to cashew egg roast and cashew quail egg dosa.
I could tell that Pai’s dosas are incredibly popular – the crowd there was like a Kumbh Mela dress rehearsal. You enter, and on your right you will find a cash counter. This, I suppose, is handled by the family. You place your order, get a slip and move to the counter to the left. Behind the counter is an open kitchen, where you can see cooks expertly flipping dosas or cracking eggs. You hand over the slip, and wait for your order to arrive. It doesn’t take long, but you have to really strain your eyes while you stand there. One eye has to be on the kitchen, to ensure that you don’t miss your order. The other eye has to be on the hall where millions of people can be seen digging into their food. The moment you see an empty table, you have to rush there and grab a chair.
The dosa is served with sambar, coconut chutney and gun powder. You can go for refills, too. I had asked for a cashew roast dosa (Rs 100), and my foodie companion, a podi dosa (Rs 80). I love the podi dosa that you get in the Carnatic Café in New Friends’ Colony. So we shared the dosas, and had a great meal. The cashew dosa was filled with cashew nuts, and the podi dosa came smeared with a thick layer of the hot dal-and-chilly powder mix. Both were finger-licking good.
One of the popular dishes there is the salt and pepper dosa (Rs 130) – in which the filling of boiled potatoes and eggs is lashed with pepper and salt. The chocolate and cashew dosa (Rs 130) would have been greatly relished by folks at home, but I was sorry to see paneer masala dosa (Rs 120) on the menu. I suppose there are tastes and there are tastes.
But Pai’s was a good introduction to Kochi. Some would say that I went far to have a dosa. But then, again, there are dosas and there are dosas.
(The writer is a seasoned food critic)
