Eat Like Ushi

Varanasi TA #2 is Dosa Cafe. It was a quiet evening and slightly chilly. From the inside seats you can see locals, tourists and cows wander past. It's an unsual restaurant in that it specialises in lots of different types of street foods. Each type of street food has a lot of different options from basic to what I can only describe as attempted fusion.

In any case each serve is small, meaning you can try one of each.

- Masala Vada (savoury fritter prepared with chickpea dal & spices, deep fried) - nice salty and satisfying snack;
- Vegetarian Idli (savoury cake from steamed batter of fermented black lentils & rice) served with coconut sauce & sambar - I think the fried version would have been more my taste as the steamed version was similar to a very bland type of Asian bao;
- Masala Dosa (fermented crepe from rice batter & black lentils) stuffed with mashed potato, ginger, garlic, carrot, green peas, onion, tomato, peanuts & spices - the restaurant namesake is a large, thin crispy triangle of pastry. It was fine but looks more impressive than it was satisfying to me;
- Cheese Spinach Sweet Corn Uttapam (thick pancake cooked in batter) topped with fresh spinach paste, sweet corn, cumin seeds, ginger & mozzarella cheese - this Indian pizza was actually quite nice. A thick, soft, doughy base with nice toppings of your choice.

Next time I would order probably one of each of those again, except the idli would be a fried type and a different dosa just for the textural variety. I wanted to try upma also (thick porridge cooked in ghee) but I think I'd been over-ghee'd and this would tip me over.

The last thali in India needed to be a good one. Since I was in Varanasi of which the restaurant recommendations are relatively limited, I had to resort to Tripadvisor. All the websites that listed Varanasi restaurants recommendations essentially exclusively list high-end luxury hotels all of which are near the train station. The only thali place is Niyati at #5 which is also conveniently near Dashaswamedh Ghat. Actually considering that is the most popular and largest ghat, I'm not surprised all the high TA recommendations are near there. Anyway, I digress...

What was odd was the two shoeless boys that served us. Clearly this was new to them as evidenced by the timid approach and general muteness (they could speak). The owner came out occasionally and told us they were his children aged 14yo and 16yo. Honestly I think they looked more like 10yo and 12yo max. I don't want to promote childhood labour but hopefully my tips got to them.

- Banana Lassi - quite nice with thick chunks of banana which I liked. There were sugar crystals which in hindsight I should've asked them to withhold;
- Masala Chai - simple spiced chai;
- Garlic Naan - I think I had developed a taste for intensely garlic naan. This flavour was much more subtle and coated with butter, and texture was firm and chewy. Not the best but a filler;
- Special Thali (mix veg curry, aloo jira, dal fry, rice, papd, curd, pickle, butter chapati, paneer curry & sweet) - each thali ingredient tasted was good but the standout was the potatoes. I don't know how they cooked them but they were seasoned, buttery and spiced in flavour, and slightly firm and fluffy in texture. One of the best I've ever had.

I'd gladly go back for the thali, especially those great potatoes. There's a very minute possibility I got sick from this food (although to be honest I'm sure it was the Varanasi street food).