New & Delicious Dosa At Madina

Madina (563 Coney Island Ave. on the corner of Beverley Rd.) has been around for 8 years serving really tasty, fresh curries, tandooris, and other typical North Indian/Bangladeshi/Pakistani to a combination of immigrants and Ditmas Park locals.

A few weeks ago, they put up a sign advertising four varieties of dosa, the pancakes typical of South Indian cuisine. I was a little skeptical of this, particularly when one of the owners told me that they had introduced the menu — Thursday through Saturday evening only — because of demand from “Americans.”

Then they told me about how they’d come to make dosas: A relative of one of the co-owners, who has roots in Hyderabad, is spending a few months in town, and is pitching in.

The results are really amazing: The wait is just a couple minutes — just long enough to make a fresh dosa — and the results are perfectly tangy, crispy, and enormous pancake, a corner poking out of the styrofoam takeout container. The Masala Dosa was filled with fresh, spicy, and not overcooked potato-based filling, and came with a perfectly fresh sambhar for dipping.

An older woman from British Guyana had dropped by as well when I was there, having heard about the rare opportunity to get some South Indian cooking in central Brooklyn; she had persuaded the chefs to make her an off-menu idli, a fluffy, savory cake that’s a traditional breakfast in the region.

So go check out the dosas. They are around only through the summer, Thursday-Sunday from 5-9pm.