After much jostling with fellow foodies, I find a seat. Atop the roof of Hotel Supreme, locals and foreigners have gathered to savour one of Madurai’s most favoured tiffin items – the dosa! Do dosas sound boring? “Not at all,” says S. Ravichandran, the Food & Beverages Manager, “especially with our 111 exciting varieties of dosas for this year’s festival.” He tempts me to try some of the signature dosas of the festival as the sibilant sound of the batter being poured onto the hot tawa makes for the background score and families and friends engage themselves in gentle banter under the wintry sky.
Neatly folded into a triangle, crispy and steaming, my first dosa arrives. It is stuffed with paneer burji, spring onions and fried mushrooms. Soaking in the view of the tall inns on the West Perumal Maistry street and counting all the 13 towers of the Meenakshi temple in the background, I take delightful bites of the spicy dosa – dipping the pieces alternately in bland coconut and the tangy tomato chutney.
“Two decades ago, when paneer and mushrooms were rare ingredients in Madurai kitchens, this dosa was an instant hit,” says Ravichandran. He has successfully held the trademark dosa festival at the hotel’s roof-top restaurant ever since. “In the initial years, we introduced 25 varieties. Being a pure vegetarian hotel, it was a challenge to survive in Madurai. Today, we have a loyal customer base awaiting the annual dosa festival,” says Hanish Lalan, General Manager.
Coming in different shapes – triangles, cones, rolls and circles, each dosa offered at the festival has a distinct taste. Ranging from the sweet taste of chocolate, marmalade, fruits and toffee and tutti-frutti to the spicy flavours of Babycorn manchurian, Shanghai, Mysore masala and mixed vegetable dosa, there’s something for everyone. “This year’s menu also includes a special set of dosas designed after the 12 moon signs in the zodiac,” informs Chef K. Muthu, who makes around 700 to 1,000 dosas every evening during the festival. I choose the Aquarian and Piscean dosas, the former is a rich combo of cheese, corn and chilli sauce and the latter, a fruit dosa containing warm grapes, sliced apples, guava and oranges within the crisp fold. Thankfully, the fruit dosa doesn’t taste as bizarre as it looks. “The sweet kinds are mostly liked by kids. They find it fascinating to eat chocolate and jam filled in dosas,” says Muthu.
My next pick is an Andhra pesarattu, a thick stuffy dosa topped with roasted onions. Along with a mildly sautéed kadamba aviyal containing carrot, beans, drumstick and pumpkin, the pesarattu turns out be exceptionably palatable. “Pesarattu is made of moong dal batter and cooked with liberal doses of sesame oil. It has a pleasant smell and taste,” says Muthu, refilling the bowl of sambar.
The ‘Gramathu Uthappam’ is an ideal end to the feasting. A puffy little circle is put on my plate that resembles the famous Kari dosai. The uthappam has a thick layer of mashed vegetables on the top. Muthu explains, “Assorted vegetables such as lady’s finger, brinjal, raw bananas and siru kelangu are mashed with boiled lima beans in a mud pot. The mixture is shallow fried in oil and added to the uthappam.”
All such mind-blowing varieties of dosas are available at Rs.60 each. The festival is on till January 26 from 4 p.m. to 12 a.m. and will again return the next weekend from January 30 to February 1. For more details: 9965068166
