Dosai, Do

Udupi Café
5060 Central Ave. NE, Columbia Heights; (612) 574-1113
Hours: Daily 11:00 a.m.-9:30 p.m.; lunch buffet Monday-Friday 11:00 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

When the paper masala dosai hits the table, I want to suspend time. I want a few moments to gawk at this awesome south Indian dish, which is sort of like a crepe, or a curled Norwegian krummkake, magnified 30 times. The dosai itself is a completely flat circle of bread, about two feet in diameter, furled into a funnel that rises a foot off the table. Inside, like furniture in a dollhouse, sit two little metal cups, and behind them a pile of potatoes and onions--for cute! I just want to gape at this Barbie living room as done by some soft, modern textile master.

And the paper masala version isn't even the tastiest dosai Udupi Café, the new vegetarian restaurant in Columbia Heights, offers. Dosai (pronounced DOE-sah) are thin, crepe-like breads, and Udupi (pronounced uh-duh-PAY) serves 14 versions, some delivered soft, some crisp, some small, and some made with whole wheat, lentil flour, or spice. For my money, the best of the lot is the rava masala dosai ($6.50), made with grated onions and chiles. These additions make the pancake thin and loose, which results in a gorgeous lace in the pan, a net of dough that, sizzled in a bit of oil, gets crisp and brown like the edge of hash browns. In the net is captured the same pretty yellow potato-and-onion mixture that fills the paper masala dosai. Try to come with more than two people, so you can justify getting them both.

Other standouts on the menu include the baigan bartha ($7.99), a fire-roasted-eggplant dish that's ubiquitous in Indian restaurants, but fresh and distinct here. Palak paneer ($7.99), that dish of spinach and fresh cheese, is lively with nutmeg and cinnamon. Among the breads, a few--including the several paratha, another type of flatbread ($2.25-$2.99)--can be unappetizingly oily; others, like the beach-ball-like poori ($2.99), are just delicious. The batura ($2.99) was a new one to me: It's a big blanket of a bread, deep-fried till its outer layer is as crisp and chewy as a fried won-ton shell--absolutely addictive.

The same, however, can't be said for the whole Udupi menu. If you don't order carefully from a lineup based on grain and pulse flours and a modest number of vegetables, you may encounter a dulling sameness to the dishes. Vada ($3.25 to $3.95) are quite simply hot, fried lentil-flour doughnuts that absorb the flavor of whatever you put on them; ditto the iddly ($3.25 to $3.95), saucer-shaped patties of steamed cream of wheat, some varied with the addition of rice or lentils. Uthappam ($5.25-$5.95), quarter inch-thick fried pancakes made from a leavened batter of rice flour, chickpea flour, or both, tend to be very bland. They're made to be dipped into sambar, a tasty, slightly sour lentil soup made with vegetables and spiced with mustard, coriander, fenugreek, asafetida, and a bit of chili.

Sambar comes with most of Udupi's dishes. A fresh coconut chutney accompanies nearly everything as well; it's sweet and light, a purée that tastes like it was a whole, fresh coconut very recently. If you order sada dosai ($4.95) or plain paper dosai ($5.75), you'll get the dosai, sambar, and chutney--the bread is the meal.

Udupi is distinctly not a restaurant that tries to make you run up the bill by withholding chutneys, but an order of pachadi is a good investment. The thin, sugary south Indian version of the yogurt dip raita, made with a bit of cucumber and fresh tomato, goes particularly well with curries. A cup of the thick, sweet mango chutney ($1.50) is a nice addition to the table, too, and if you mistakenly order many versions of the same basic dish, its sweet spice can save the day.

What Udupi lacks in dramatic variety it makes up for with comfort: The overall impression isn't one of dullness so much as of a skillful home cook dishing up a familiar repertoire. The modest prices--the average entrée is priced around six dollars--and the mint-and-white breakfast-nook décor also contribute to a welcome-to-our-kitchen feel.

I was initially surprised at how crisply run the café is. I've gotten in and out of there for dinner, with three courses, in 45 minutes, something you never see in a brand-new restaurant with a brand-new staff. But then I talked to Myrappan Nagappan, who opened the restaurant in June, and learned that it's not exactly a brand-new operation--more like a new branch on an established tree.