Roadside dosa is the street food that every one wants to try but no one wants to commit to. You can’t pick it up in one hand and leave, like with a vada pav, and you can’t just pop them into your mouth like chaat. No, getting a dosa on the side of the road means waiting, and then getting your hands dirty. No one has time for that noise. Manju Dosa, however, might just be worth the wait.
Manju Dosa is on the corner of a busy junction, a little down the road from the big fancy Khar Starbucks, and right opposite the ‘Gujarat Research Society’, which let’s all pretend is not a secret society that is planning to turn the whole world vegetarian. Manju Dosa was started decades ago by a man from Mysore, so you know it’s legit. Although he’s long gone now, his legacy is carried on by a team of skilled, sweaty young men who work together to put out more than 200 dosas a day.
The dosas are all served with coconut chutney, which, quite remarkably is perfectly chilled, and temporarily puts out the painful fire in your mouth every time you take another masochist bite of your piping hot dosa. Manju dosa’s small platoon of culinary warriors take your order, skilfully make your dosa right in front of you, and religiously refill your chutney the moment they see you’re running low.
Cheese Sada Dosa
Rs. 70
The Cheese Sada Dosa, in all it’s simplicity, is what dreams are made of. A soft, buttery, dosa enriched with, I shit you not, a quarter inch of cheese. Now no amount of cheese is enough cheese, but somehow the guys at Manju Dosa get it just right. There’s more than enough cheese for you to not feel like you’re being ripped off, and yet not so much as to make you spend an hour chewing and swallowing each bite. If you ever go here, you should definitely try this dosa. However, we aren’t twelve year old girls, and just a cheese dosa wouldn’t suffice.
Mysore Cheese Masala Dosa
Rs. 100
At The Bombay Report we like to live like kings, and like always, we ordered the most expensive thing on the menu. The Cheese Mysore Masala is an amalgamation of everything that is right with Mysore, a crisp, piping hot package of deliciously spiced vegetables and unforgiving, molten cheese. This dosa can be a bit spicy, so if you’re a pussy, we’d advise against it.
TBR Insight: Although we normally despise vegetarians and their terrible food, we’ve come to find that adding copious amounts of cheese to vegetarian food can make it surprisingly palatable.
