Where to Eat Dosa and Other South Indian Food in Montreal | Eater Montreal

"Opened in 2012 on a strip surrounded by kosher fishmongers, Chinese barbecue joints, and Filipino grocery stores, I found Thanjai to be a trailblazer in Montreal’s South Indian scene thanks to owner Kumaresan Muthukrishnan, who came from Tamil Nadu and brought a love of idli and dosa. The idli—dipped into sambar, a light lentil soup spiked with vegetables—is presented as a healthful morning starter, while the dosa menu runs the gamut from plain and papermasala (a round, crunchy tube with potato stuffing) to wrap dosas and the pièce de résistance, a six-foot dosa meant for sharing. Their South Indian-style samosas are flatter, stuffed mainly with caramelized onion and peas rather than potato, and I liked the restaurant’s homemade sweet-tart tamarind chutney alongside them. Thanjai is also expanding into business lunch delivery and a kitchen for snacks and sweets (murukku is already for sale), and the dish to try here is their Chicken 65, served topped with raw sweet onion and a squeeze of lemon." - Ivy Lerner-Frank