How Karnataka's benne dosa returned to prominence thanks to a little Bandra restaurant

Now returning to Indian restaurant menus, benne dosa, a Bengaluru mainstay, is enticing diners with its creamy buttery flavor.grew up in what was then Calcutta, eating masala and paper dosas. Small eateries like Jyoti Vihar, which is renowned for its South Indian cuisine but isn't known for its ambiance, would expertly prepare staple meals like crispy paper dosas or dosas wrapped in masala potatoes and served with coconut chutney and sambar. I was such a dosa lover that I would order a dosa from a little South Indian eatery, served on a banana leaf rather than a plate, wilted and soft by the time it got to me, while my family ate roast lamb with mint sauce.My father was sent to what was then Bangalore when he was twelve years old.

Thirty years ago, this was the most contemporary city we could imagine. Clean, green, safe, and cool all year round, it was so "modern" that it had shops offering marinated roast chicken that was ready to bake.The food made by my father's cook, Prema, was one of the many things Bengaluru had to offer. Everything she prepared was delicious, with the exception of the dosa. Her dish, the benne dosa—"benne" meaning butter—was unfamiliar to us. These were thicker, crispy on the surface, soft on the inside, and invariably came with two or three coconut chutneys, in contrast to the thin, crisp dosas we were accustomed to. Prema believed she was feeding a family of heathens, therefore we assumed she didn't know how to prepare dosas. But we came to adore these over time. We soon returned to Calcutta and its crispy paper dosas, though.