Crispy Dosa

Welcome to the very first post on Eating Croydon – a review of Crispy Dosa.

I guess I have to start with explaining my intent with this blog. Why am I starting an occasional a blog about restaurants in Croydon?

So I moved to Croydon around 18 months ago, yeah I’m one of those new residents in a relatively new block of flats that people on the Croydon subreddit occasionally complain just live here and spend their money elsewhere in London.

And, yes, it is true that I spend most of my fun money (what is left after mortgage, bills, etc) in the rest of London. Have you seen all the cool places in Walthamstow that are opening up? Or all the gorgeous little restaurants in central London? Or the great food trucks in Hackney? Or the shabby chic restaurants in Peckham?

Yet Croydon must also have some gems.

I’ve been living in Croydon long enough to understand that it doesn’t advertise itself well. This also applies to restaurants as much as it does to the town as a whole – some of the restaurants seem very much to be appealing to the 1990’s. If that is your thing, cool, but I reckon there must be some real gems around here, and that I don’t need to spend 2-3 hours travelling, and possibly twice the price to get some really tasty grub.

Hello Croydon

I think there are three main reasons for doing Eating Croydon, some selfish, some selfless.

The selfish one is that most of my friends live elsewhere in London (also a reason to eat elsewhere!), and having a blog to write, even if just once a month, will give me reason to go out and try stuff.

Maybe, just maybe, I might meet one or two new people who fancy joining me on a culinary journey through Croydon.

But also I feel as a resident of Croydon, I should get involved. Croydon might not have everything I’m looking for in a place to live, but if I don’t make the most of what we do have, how can I expect it to replicate some of the more exciting areas (in my view) of London?

And maybe, by writing this blog, I can just nudge the restaurant scene along a little bit. Maybe persuade one or two more people to eat out in Croydon.

Of course, I am just one opinion.

Eating Croydon

Don’t expect too much from me.

I’m just a bloke with a blog. I am far from a culinary expert, I’ve never worked in a restaurant, let alone run one. Some cuisines I know quite a bit about, others I’m pretty clueless on – heck, going to Crispy Dosa was the first time I’ve eaten a dosa.

You’ll probably find me reviewing the restaurants in what the estate agent told me was “Restaurant Quarter”, or the shacks in Boxpark. You probably won’t find me reviewing a greasy spoon or a chain restaurant. Granted, Crispy Dosa is a chain – but I mean somewhere like Nando’s or Pizza Express. Do we even have a Pizza Express in Croydon?

Also reviews will be honest. If someone serves me a dud, well, I’m going to say it so. Hopefully I’ll get to write lots of positive things about restaurants in Croydon, but I’m not going to lie to you either.

Enough of an introduction. Time for a dosa.

I love Indian food. Quite possibly it is my favourite cuisine, though my favourite cuisine can change at least once a day.

Yet I’ve never had a dosa. Hence myself and the two Croydon friends I do have, decided upon an evening at Crispy Dosa.

Crispy Croydon

Nor have I been to a vegetarian Indian restaurant. We weren’t hugely sure what to expect – even in terms of alcohol. Do they serve beer? Or is it a dry restaurant? Is it BYOB? Is there anywhere on the website that will elucidate?

There is a menu on their website, but they only mentioned soft drinks – so we assumed not.

Yet they did serve both beer and wine, and we actually had a half-decent bottle of red there. Alas, I don’t remember what grape it was, I was too confused with the food ordering to consider making a note, yet it was at least medium-bodied, and actually rather good for an Indian restaurant. At least compared to red wines I’ve previously had in Indian restaurants, which in my semi-limited experience, can be naff.

Can you read this menu?

So not only have Crispy Dosa decided to use a small font, but also a cursive font – then put it behind a plastic sleeve of which the light bounces off.

This is a bit of a bug-bear of mine, and if I was 30 years older, I expect I’d be screaming about it, but please please please restaurants make sure your customers can read your menus without using a magnifying glass.

Crispy Culture

Our confusion continued, none of us really knowing what we should order, so we asked for some help.

“You want two plain dosas?”. “No, we just want some advice.”. “Three plain dosas?”. “No, we just want some help on what to order”. “Two plain dosas?”. On it went and we kindly thanked her and asked for a few minutes to be confused alone.

We’d settled on ordering two dosas and three curries to share between us (paneer tikka masala, dal tadka and aloo gobi – something I have actually cooked before).

Yet when we went to order, the refrain from the waiter was “too much”.

Confused, we reduced our curries to two. “You need more”.

OK, so we need less than three curries, but more than two curries. Do you understand that more than I do?

Eventually we figured out that he was saying that we didn’t have enough substantial food to dip in the curries, so we ordered some garlic bread.

Phew.

Crispy Thoughts

I’m pro-immigration but if your staff don’t have a good enough grasp of English to (metaphorically) hold the hand of people who don’t know what they are doing, then maybe the menu needs a helping guide.

Oh and a more legible font.

Let’s talk dosa. A new concept to me (where have I been), so I cannot tell you if this is a good example of a dosa – I can tell you that I enjoyed it, especially the slightly sour aftertaste from chewing which is only a hint – reminiscent of sourdough bread.

The only dip I really enjoyed was the orange one, a bit of internet research suggests it might be called Sambar, but I don’t know for sure – and the menu, of course, doesn’t advise either.

This dip had the spiciness to it, and felt like it was lentil-based with spices, perhaps tamarind.

The other two dips I didn’t mind, but I preferred the orange one so mostly had that. I guess you’d call them chutneys, the green one was more coriander based, the white one, not sure. Nothing wrong with them, just that the spicier one was more my vibe. Plus we had loads of curry to get through.

The Gobi Manchurian dosa (sounds so regal, doesn’t it?) didn’t really need the accompanying dips in my view, there was enough going on. More of a Chinese-spice kind of flavour, and a reasonable amount of cauliflower inside.

Crispy Takes

So the waiter was right, we did both have too much and not enough.

I’m unfussed about paneer as a whole, this was as soft as you’d expect, the tikka masala was creamy and you could very much make out that it was tomato based. Little, if any spice, not that I could detect.

Dal Tadka wouldn’t have been my choice to order – a kind of gloopy curry made from lentils, though with little in the way of lentil. Not for me, but your tastes may vary.

The one that was my choice, Aloo Gobi, was thankfully my favourite dish of the evening. The sauce had a really pleasing depth to it, quite a bit of spice, a bit of cauliflower and some soft new potatoes.

Unlike the Dal Tadka, the sauce in this dish was finished…the naan bread was nothing special, and two plates of naan bread was too much for the three of us. Yet we definitely needed it to mop up this ace sauce.

Crispy Dosa

So there you have it, the first and hopefully not the last review of Eating Croydon.

I don’t have much of a reference point to compare Crispy Dosa to – as I’ve already pointed out, I’d never had a dosa before this, so I cannot tell you if this is a particularly good specimen of dosa, or not.

Likewise, I’ve never eaten in a vegetarian Indian restaurant before.

I probably wouldn’t go back to Crispy Dosa off my own back, but only because there are so many other places to try. On the flip side, if someone wanted to me to go with them to Crispy Dosa, I’d happily go – and I’d have a bit more clue what to order, especially the Aloo Gobi. Definitely the Aloo Gobi.

I’m going to hand out ratings so there is something to compare all the restaurants to, though it is a bit notional and as always with these things, your preferences may well be different to mine, so take the ratings with the pinch of salt they deserve.

As such my rating for Crispy is a respectable 7 out of 10.

Confusing service, illegible menu and disappointing naans, ace Aloo Gobi, other dishes either broadly good or just not my vibe, and the wine was pretty decent.

Crispy Dosa is worth a visit, and do order the Aloo Gobi.

There will be a review two.