Dosa Plaza, Camberwell by Obelix

I've been circulating the relatively new Dosa Plaza in Camberwell with curiosity for the past few months.  Plastered all over it's windows are the words, "vegan", "go veggie"...mmm...I hazard a guess, a vegetarian establishment?  As a part time vegetarian, I was rather excited by this.  So a bit of Googling ensued and I found out that Dosa Plaza is an Indian franchise and offered an assortment of Indian and curiously, Chinese, Italian and Mexican dishes.  Part of my extensive research in the name of gastronomy led me to a Scoop-on deal which essentially was a half price voucher - buy a $30 Scoop-on and get $60 worth of food and drinks.  With  Scoop-on voucher in my hot greedy hands, P, Kiddo and I rocked up for dins.  It was a family friendly restaurant with plenty of pram space and high chairs.  We over-ordered but it was in the name of research and cross sampling. 


For starters we had mini idlis (12 pieces) with dhal and raita dipping sauce ($6.50).  This wasn't as exciting as I had hoped.  It was my first time eating idlis and I had romantisied them to some extent as I had heard so much about them.  They were warm steamed rice cakes. Bland if it weren't for the dhal.  I saw young toddlers at the next table chomming into idlis as their dinner so perhaps they are more suitable as nursery food. 

The samosas (2 pieces) for $4.50 were more my thing.  Big, deep fried pastry with a melange of veggies enclosed within and came with a tamarind dipping sauce.  Would happily order this again.

P decided that when in Dosa Plaza, one must at least try a dosa.  So we ordered the rocket mysore dosa ($8.50).  It was a conical lentil crepe with a savoury glaze with accompanying dhal and raita.  Nice but nothing to write home about.  Not bad for the price. 

To go with our main dish, a curry Makhanwala ($10.50) we ordered a few carbs in the form of tandoori roti ($2) and garlic naan ($3).  The roti was rather dry and cardboard-like but I suspect that was because it was a wholemeal roti.  


The garlic naan was sublime, loads of garlic.  My pick of the night is the Makhanwala which was a delicious creamy sauce, reminiscent of a butter chicken sauce but sans chook.

Kiddo decided to go for the Punjabi Thali ($12.50) which came with a few curries of the day, a cardamon almondy dipping sauce, raita, pappadum and rice.  It was substantial and what I would order if I was dining alone as it had a little bit of everything. 

We went to town with the drinks.  Kiddo had a mocktail called Cool Sky ($4) and it was vividly blue which only afterwards I realised had blue curacao in it.  It was billed as a 'mocktail' on the menu and with the price, who would have thought it would have alcohol in it?!  


I had a clearly non alcoholic mango lassi ($4) and P was greedy and got a royal falooda with ice cream ($8.50) and a 'mocktail' called Irish Berry ($4). 

Verdict:  We liked it.

Overall

Apart from the awful feeling that I unwittingly gave a minor an alcoholic beverage due to Dosa Plaza's loose definition of a mocktail, I did enjoy my dinner there and it was particularly good value with the Scoop-on voucher.