• N.Y. Dosas

  West 4th Street, near Sullivan Street, 917-710-2092

  At the edge of Washington Square Park, an assortment of NYU students, South Asian expats, and downtown hipsters crowd around Thiru Kumar’s food cart waiting for their daily dosa, the vegetarian crêpe from South India. The grinning, thickly mustached Kumar works his small grill like a hyperactive D.J., pouring batter, spreading on curried potatoes, and sprinkling a crunchy dice of carrots and peppers (the Pondicherry masala dosa, $5). When the batter is cooked through, Kumar folds it with an artist’s flair, effortlessly lifting the ethereally thin lentil-and-rice-flour wrapper from the grill, then chops it into sections and serves it with a gingery coconut chutney and a small tub of spicy lentil soup. The result: a delicious, ultrahealthy meal-on-the-street that’s well worth the wait. .

From the 2004 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine