Dosa Dosa      Address: 562 South Circular Road, Rialto, D08 CX33Telephone: 01 559 0482Cuisine: IndianCost: €€Restaurants that reflect a country’s colonial past are something I’ve become more conscious of in recent years, but a piece by Vijayta Lalwani in the online magazine Vittles on how war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have sparked a cooking gas and energy crisis in India set me thinking about how we talk about street food. In it, she writes that chulhas, the traditional firewood stoves, are “viewed nostalgically by the elite classes”, but the reality is starkly different. The smoke makes them impossible to use inside small, modest homes. Until three months ago, one woman Lalwani meets in Pune cooked indoors, in her one-room, tin-walled home, on a gas stove. Now, with a scarcity of gas cylinders and black-market prices beyond her means, she cooks outside on a chulha. With daytime temperatures hitting 40 degrees, cooking has to be done early in the morning or in the evening.The smoke, flame and firewood of a chulha are not required for cooking a dosa, a thin pancake made from a batter of fermented ground rice and lentils, so when Karthik Thiru started trading from The Place Street Food Yard in Grand Canal Dock in 2020, his Dosa Dosa food truck was equipped with a large flattop griddle to cook them on. He had missed the taste of home, seen that no one was selling dosa – you’ll find it in other restaurants now – and discovered that many of his fellow Indians missed it too. He now has a converted shipping container in the same spot, has grown a catering business using the food truck and, in 2025, opened Dosa Dosa restaurant in Rialto, Dublin 8.The menu features his street-food dishes – dosa, idli, vada and uttapam – which are eaten in homes and restaurants as well as on the streets of south India, alongside the cooking of Thiru’s native Thanjavur, the former imperial Chola capital in Tamil Nadu. The head chef, Partiban Veerappan, hails from neighbouring Puducherry.We walk through the covered outdoor seating area into an air-conditioned room, a huge relief as it’s one of the hottest days of the year. A spicy margarita (€11.99) with Madras spices and a bottle of Cobra (€7) are ordered immediately. The margarita gets lost in the bustle of a full restaurant but, after a reminder, turns up about half an hour after it was ordered.From the snacks and small bites section, the spinach masala vada (€10), three spinach and lentil fritters, are deceptively good eating, dipped into a spicy tomato chutney. Crisp on the outside, yielding to a soft interior, they’re speckled with what I’m guessing are coriander, parsley, coriander seed, fennel seed and curry leaf. Mark this as a must-order item.We do, of course, order a dosa – my favourite, the award-winning gunpowder ghee masala dosa (€14). I look around the restaurant, and most diners have done likewise, tucking into a deliciously crisp, fermented pancake that looks like a large galette loosely rolled into a cylinder. But it’s quite different. The inside is brushed with ghee and dusted with the gunpowder spice blend, which brings a hot edge. The filling of masala potatoes adds another layer of flavour, as do the accompanying chutneys and sambar.The dosa at Dosa Dosa restaurant in Rialto, Dublin 8. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni Fire grill chicken at Dosa Dosa restaurant in Rialto, Dublin 8. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni Thanjavur lamb curry at Dosa Dosa restaurant in Rialto, Dublin 8. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni The curries include a choice of sides – rice, kal dosa or Malabar parotta – which makes the mango fish curry with Keralan spices (€18) look incredibly good value. It’s a red sauce with a lovely depth of spicing – rich but not too hot, with a sour tanginess that keeps it balanced. The flaky parotta bread takes on the moppage role admirably. We choose rice to go with the spicier lentil and spinach curry (€16).Ashoka halwa (€6) is hailed on the menu as the dessert “house special”, which is no surprise when you consider that it’s native to Thiru’s hometown. Made from lentils cooked slowly with ghee and sugar, it has a pleasant, fudgy consistency and is served with ice cream, which offers a good contrast.[ La Vespa review: The gloriously battered prawns are indeed the Dublin Bay variety - not something you see oftenOpens in new window ]It would have been a better experience if the service hadn’t been so haphazard, something I put down to a kitchen that seemed to be under pressure dealing with both diner and takeaway orders, with more than two people needed on the floor. Perhaps they were understaffed that evening, but it could definitely be improved by an additional set of clogs rattling around the kitchen and another front-of-house person to lighten the load. The value, however, is remarkable.Dinner for two with two drinks was €83.49.The Verdict: Remarkable value and delicious south Indian foodFood provenance: Lamb, Kildare Chilling; chicken, not free-range, Quigley Meats and Doyle Meats; vegetables, Nature FreshVegetarian options: Masala dosa, aubergine curry, spinach vada and paneer ChettinadWheelchair access: Fully accessible with an accessible toiletMusic: South Indian classical and contemporary Tamil music Dosa Dosa restaurant in Rialto, Dublin 8. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni Chicken lollipops at Dosa Dosa restaurant in Rialto, Dublin. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni