Posted: March 15, 2017, 2:44pm
Indian food with a western touch, such is the cuisine of Rasa, a restaurant in San Francisco. One of the most different yet amazing touch to the Indian cuisine that I have ever seen.
All the Indian dishes are served in a contemporary style, while still maintaining the original flavors.
Amongst their appetizers, I love the “Indian Railway Peppers”, which is a westernized version of the Indian “Mirchi Bhajji”, which is a crispy green chilli stuffed with mashed potato. One of my favorite Indian snacks. The one at Rasa however was made with sweet banana peppers and had greek yoghurt with lime over it. Nevertheless, it tasted delicious.
I also tried their “Bombay Sliders”, which relates to “Vada Paav”, an Indian city, Mumbai’s go-to fast food. Since Vada Paav is supposed to be very spicy, and the Bombay Sliders were sweet, I did not enjoy it as much as the Indian Railway Peppers. I would still go for the authentic Vada Paav.
The dish that stood out was their “Bollywood Dosa”. As a masala dosa, this too was stuffed with spiced potato masala hash but there was this one ingredient that one would never expect in a dosa. The dosa had a “ghost chilli” chutney spread on it. Ghost chilli, also known as “Bhut Jolokia” is mostly cultivated in Eastern India and was certified as the world’s hottest pepper in 2007 by the Guiness World Records, with a spice level of 400 times that of tabasco sauce. This dosa left every spicy Indian dish way behind.
Though I am accustomed to eating a lot of spicy Indian dishes, I could not eat more than five bites of this Bollywood Dosa, and so I just ordered the regular Masala Dosa, which was very tasty and in par with the dosas made in India.
Would I go back and try the Bollywood Dosa again? It is something that I have never eaten before and how much ever I dread it I would still try it because it was very different. You need a spice kick occasionally. 😛
Overall, the restaurant did justice to the contemporary Indian style cuisine. Though a little pricey, you must try it at least once.
The following is a picture of the Masala Dosa that I liked a lot and is my every Sunday brunch, back at home in India.
Published on July 27th, 2017
Last updated on August 10th, 2017