Rose P.
Yelp
I stumbled across this cool little market today. It's on the corner and the way the space is laid out, the eye naturally is drawn from the sandwich boards in through the doors, which shows a micromall filled with food stalls. The sandwich board was advertising Dosas, which really pulls me out of a dreamlike stupor and into the money-counting, readyer-to-pay-for-something state of mind. I had been to Dosa Royale once before, but didn't realize there was another location here. So then I realized there was also some other Indian food inside, and an Italian sandwich shop, a taco shop, and a sushi shop. My feet basically lead themselves in with just enough time to shout back to my spouse before I was through the door and gone from the street.
The walkways are beautifully lit with natural light from above, though indoors. It wasn't crowded today so the air was comfortably cool. The Italian sandwich shop was out of my price range, but I can't eat bread anyway so I don't usually stop at places like this. I saw the tacos and shook my head in disbelief once again because it's gonna take another decade for me to wrap my head around the East Coast concept of $4 tacos. I ordered a Palak Paneer Dosa. The advertisement mentioned that Dosas are gluten free, vegan, and probiotic. I never though about the probiotic part before - does cooking the dosa kill the enzymes from the fermentation? But I digress. The sushi stand was the only place with any customers at this hour. A whiteboard said $58 and listed a bunch of sushi items below it along with a time limit - was that an upscale All-You-Can-East deal? I sure hope so! Most sushi AYCE is low-end. As a poor person living large, I'd love to splurge for a higher-end version just once.
The Dosa itself was $8. The spinach was stewed spinach with either bean sprouts or long cooked onions in it, served with grated paneer instead of cubes, red onions, and possibly some other raw salad-type veggies. Not bad, but I prefer a more traditional palak paneer with the browned cheese chunks in a puree, and I'd like to be able to decline speciifc raw veggies as I find red onions completely inedible. It reminded me of a pondicherry dosa, when I'd rather have a plain ol' pile of potatoey masala dosa even though it lacks fresh veggies. The employee was very nice, the packagng was great, the sambal was great, coconut chutney wasn't too strong but was generous with the coconut, didn't try the other chutney.
I think there are more restaurants in this mall that I didn't see. I can't tell how big it is, or if there are other businesses, but it's a great place to step in if you're hungry and undecided, or need to escape the weather, or want a different food than your friends/family. There's probably a bathroom which is always important if you're walking around!
