Sri Guru Kottureshwara's Pancakes

The chap manning the tava at Sri Guru Kottureshwara Benne Dosa Hotel in Davangere is a gastro-terrorist. This guy has been pushing dosa boundaries for decades now and seriously, he is the one maav-radical every other dosa maker in the country has to be afraid of. The only thing that stops this pancake from being called the best dosa in the world is the fact that it crossed that fine line, only just, maybe by a few milimeters, into pancake territory from dosa territory. This stopped being a dosa when they put maida in the maav. If this was indeed a dosa, it would layeth the smacketh down on every single dosa ever served in any part of this universe. Or in Basavangudi. Or in Malleshwaram. Or anywhere. Dare I say it, this almost-dosa trumps the CTR dosa by miles. 150 miles to be precise. 

I have great respect for chefs who take shameless pride in their creations and flip-off anyone who questions their recipes citing the lack of certain flavours or condiments. They treat non-abiders with the disdain and contempt normally reserved for the masochist in the truly feisty S&M relationship. None more so than here. A request for otherwise seemingly normal darshini items feels something like this:

“Saar, swalpa sambar kodi.”

“Sambar is the piss of the devil made for dosas that deserve their taste to be masked. GO DIE!”

“Saar, Masala Dosa idi-aa?”

“Masala Dosa is eveloped goat shit. You look like the kind who digs that stuff, but here we eat food. GO DIE!”

“Saar neeru-idiaa?”

“Drown and choke, dog!”

And so on and so forth. Their dosas are served with just a chutney and a simple boiled mashed potato. If you ask for anything more, you might get poked in the eye not just by the proprietors, but by the hundred other patrons who didn’t like your city-slicker-wanting-avallakki-and-masala-dosa attitude. It’s like the wild west saloon of dosa kadais.

I know that much has been written and said about the Davengere benne dosa and maybe it’s even been done to death on the blogosphere. My earlier experience with this dosa was at some fake benne dosa joint in Bangalore at it was nothing compared to the delectableness of the original served at Sri Guru Kottureshwara, in MCC ‘B’ Block, Davangere. There are a thousand, no, two thousand expletives that will leave your mouth when you take that first bite into this delectable moon-cratered pancake. There will be words you didn’t even know existed until just that very moment. I’ve played that moment in my head many times over, trying to figure out if there has really been any other item of food that has made me gastronomically orgasm as much as Kottureshwara’s Pancakes, but I can’t remember.

For the life of me I can’t remember.