Masala dosa in the Big Apple

This food cart near New York University has fan clubs even in Japan

The one element everybody seems to agree on is the growing popularity of Indian street food. Mehtaphor has an ‘Indian Street Burger’, a take on the vada pav and pav bhaji.

Hemant Mathur has brought in an actual street cart from India for Tulsi, which can be taken from table to table, for mixing chaats from Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat and his native Rajasthan.

Tabla and Vermilion both set up chaat stations on their outdoor patios in the summer. For authentic Indian street food, however, it’s hard to beat Thiru Kumar.

For most of its eight years, Thiru’s food cart called NY Dosas, has been the only Indian food cart on New York’s streets.

“Two special Pondicherry, medium spicy, coming up,” announces Thiru, as he spreads a red chutney and sprinkles fresh vegetable strips over the sizzling dosas. At $4 to $6, the dosas and Uttappams are a steal for the long line of customers who queue up at his cart Monday through Saturday near the New York University campus in downtown Manhattan. Most are regulars, drawn by the fresh food and the chatty vendor.

Stanley Lee, a Chinese American who first tried Thiru’s dosas as a graduate student at NYU, has remained loyal after joining the US Attorney’s office as a paralegal, and even comes over on many weekends to volunteer at Thiru’s cart. The food cart is listed in tour guides to New York in over 40 countries and Thiru says he has fan clubs in countries as far away as Japan, Australia and Switzerland. A Tamil from Sri Lanka, Thiru sells south Indian vegan food, from staples like dosas and idlis, to the Jaffna Lunch and a vegan drumstick. Thiru is a star on the New York street food scene, a fiercely competitive space occupied by hot dog and pretzel vendors, falafel carts and taco trucks among others.

In 2007 Thiru won the Vendy award, an annual competition for street food vendors in New York. “If I had a single meat item, I should have got the cup earlier, but I’m vegan and I don’t want to change anything,” he says.