Eating adventures are quickly becoming the de rigueur badges of honor in the foodie universe. A food adventure may be a pilgrimage to Sweden to partake in the new Nordic foraging cuisine or, as is more often the case, a local journey to a restaurant or food stand that takes you out of your comfort zone or away from your daily routine. Your journey might be motivated by a sudden desire to try fiery hot Sichuanese dandan noodles or find the most ethereal eggplant parm available within an afternoon or evening trip.
So you jump in the car, hop on your bike, or ride the train with an appetite and curiosity. But just imagine driving around in a Punjabi-pimped van festooned with sparkling streamers and packed with top Indian American indie pop-rock stars, musicians, and rappers. This is what you do when you’re Amrit Singh, Executive Editor of Stereogum.com, and you have a hunkering for dosas, the paper-thin Southern Indian fermented rice and lentil flour crepes Singh first encountered in America (his family’s from the north). Singh’s short film, Dosa Hunt, tracks one such recent food adventure in New York City.
Singh and his crew—Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij, Das Racist's Himanshu Suri and Ashok "Dapwell" Kondabolu, Yeasayer's Anand Wilder, Neon Indian's Alan Palomo, and jazz pianist Vijay Iyer—begin in Curry Hill, an Indian restaurant enclave in midtown Manhattan. They discover the relative awkwardness of eating Indian food western-style (i.e. with cutlery) and soon proceed to the outer-boroughs, specifically to Jackson Heights in Queens, where they sample more dosas along with accompanying savory fillings and dipping chutneys.
This is the real deal. The boys are even inspired to make their own dosas after visiting an Indian grocery store en route. Perhaps a future Dosa Hunt Part II will follow Singh and his mates home to taste the results of a homemade food adventure.
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