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Pairing Dosas And Wine In San Francisco

By LIFS February 2, 2007 at 10:05 AM

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What would you drink with your dosa and sambar? How about Peñalolen Sauvignon Blanc '05 Limarí Valley, Chile or Serra Da Estrela Albariño '05 Rias Baixas, Spain? Yes, Anjan and Emily Mitra of San Francisco are giving South Indian food a spirited presentation by pairing it with wines at Dosa, their color drenched welcoming restaurant in San Francisco.

The wine list is crafted by Mark Bright, a noted sommelier, to pair with the fiery South Indian curries. The combination of wine and spice is obviously working because Dosa was selected as one of the top ten restaurants of 2006 by San Francisco Chronicle. Wrote Chronicle food critic Michael Bauer, "With a well-executed wine list, cocktails made with soju, and a menu well-representative of the cuisine, it's contemporary while respecting tradition."

Mitra, who came to the United States 23 years ago as a student from Bombay, had long wanted to duplicate some of the many regional cuisines he had enjoyed there.Both he and Emily were in the hi tech business when they opened the first South Indian restaurant in the Mission district of San Francisco, introducing not only the vegetarian delights like dosas and uttapams, but also the lesser known non-vegetarian cuisine of South India. Chef Senthil Kumar's repertoire includes dishes like Chennai Chicken, Tamil Lamb Curry and Cochin Calamari.

According to Mitra, semi dry white wines as well as certain red wines pair very well with the food: "With all the spices in the sambars and chutneys, they are great with a sip of sweet wine."

He adds, "We wanted to take authentic South Indian food and give it a San Francisco setting, a San Francisco ambience and a San Francisco wine list." Many of the diners are second generation Indians who straddle both cultures and seem to take to the idea of their dosas and medu vadas paired with wine.

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