Idli Sambar

For years I have been reading Monkey wax rhapsodic about her mom's idli sambar. This was a taste sensation that had passed me by, as the local Indian restaurants all tend to serve up northern Indian cuisine.

However, I was finally able to duck into Dosa, an explicitly southern Indian restaurant the other night. They had all manner of tasty looking things on the menu, most of which were vegetarian. But here I had an opportunity to finally try the idli sambar. In a word, yum. My idli (and a vada) came nestled in a bowl of sambar, a stew of tomatoes, lentils, spices and chili peppers the length of my birdy-flipping finger.

Everything was hot enough to give me the sniffles, but not hot enough to send me running for a preemptive Rolaids strike.

Thankfully, I don't get over to that part of San Francisco that often because I think I'd be in there every night until I've tried every last thing on the menu, something my wallet can hardly afford.

But I'm firmly on the idli sambar bus now, even though I'm pretty sure that restuarant idli aren't as good as Monkey's mom's.