Fast Food - Udupi Palace

It's been a busy few weeks, so I'm behind, but I have loads of pix/meals to discuss, so here begins an attempt at catching up.

A few weeks ago, Daniel and I, feeling mildly jealous of Eric and Ariel's recent trip to India, decided to take a little trip to the subcontinent ourselves, by way of Valencia. We hit up Udupi Palace, a southern Indian joint, specializing in dosa and uthappam. Given the experience I had the summer between junior and senior years of college, I don't often eat South Indian food because it brings up lingering feelings of rage. Don't know that story? Oh, I was fired from a fusion South Indian restaurant in New York because the owner thought I had been stealing from the register. I am many things, but a thief, not so much...

Anyway, in spite of these persisting feelings, I do love the dosas and was excited to give Udupi a try. We started with the idli (the rice patties pictured above) as an app, and were particularly thrilled with the sambar that accompanied them. It was warm and flavorful and lovely both as a dip for the glutionous idli and on its own eaten as a soup. For our main courses, we ended up going the uthappam direction - Daniel being Daniel went for the one with the word "Spicy" in the name (he was pleased, but not thrilled) and I went for the tomato omelette (described as an uthappam made of chick pea flour with tomato and spices.) It came with more sambar (awesome) and coconut chutney (sweet and thick and rich). I LOVED it and despite its large size, I ate the whole thing. And then I got the stomach ache that comes with copious amounts of chickpeas and lentils. Luckily, Daniel was in the same situation. We were quite a pair...