Reviews
Dosa Corner has mastered vegetarian fare from southern India.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
 When you crave hamburgers and
French fries in a disposable wrapper,
go to Wendy's.
When your hunger needs vegetables and breads delivered on throwaway
plates, go to Dosa Corner.
More blue-collar than, say, another stellar vegetarian Indian
restaurant in Ohio's capital - Udipi Cafe - Dosa Corner caters to eaters
with little need to converse over dinner and much desire to ingest tasty
carbohydrates.
Business traveler and frequent customer Ananth Sunparan, who had been
razzing a friend via cell phone while finishing the mini-smorgasbord
before him, offered a ringing endorsement.
"I live in Los Angeles," he said. "Last week I took food from here
all the way back to L.A. It is authentic south Indian food. Very good."
Hari Narahari - who manages and owns the eight-table, 28-chair setup
- creates (with the aid of a small staff) some of the most delicious
southern Indian fare in central Ohio.
(That's a short "a" in Hari, by the way: "I lived in Canada for a
long time," he said. "French people cannot pronounce 'HAR-ee,' so I
became Harry.")
Although Hari's menu is deep with cheap and delicious entrees and
breads, the dosa - a large rice-and-lentil crepe - is the star of his
vegetarian show.
There's something about taking on a food item the size of a
cheerleader megaphone that makes a dining experience more of an event
than, say, a supper of a baked potato, a can of tuna and some bagged
peas.
Still, if a 14-inch horn of vegetables isn't your speed, you have
alternatives.
During a recent visit, with heavy carryout traffic entering and exiting
for a solid hour, my party of two divvied up the South Indian Tali
($9.95) and Dosa Tali combos ($9.25).
On the table near a self-serve plastic pitcher of tap water: avail (a
creamy mixture of carrot and eggplant); uthappam (a doughy lentil
pancake); refreshing lemon rice with toasted chickpeas, peanuts, black
mustard seeds and lentils; Mysore pak (a fudge like nugget so sweet your
teeth will recoil at the sight of it); Medu Wada (lentil doughnuts);
poori (unleavened whole-wheat flat bread deep-fried in vegetable oil);
various chutneys; and gulab jamoon, a ghee-fried sugar bomb.
The one missing facet: no cold beer to put out the curry fires in our
mouths.
Some diners doubled up on mango lassis (yogurt shakes), a fine way to
stifle the burn. With Indian fare, though, I crave beer that scratches
the throat.
Oh, great granters of liquor licenses: Please give Dosa Corner the
right to sell Kingfisher beer, the crisp pilsner in the green bottle
ubiquitous in all fine Indian restaurants and - as the label reads -
"most thrilling chilled." abeck@dispatch.com
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