Mission Cafe in Sector V, an initiative of two school friends who decided over a meal while in Class IV to open a restaurant together, is hosting a two-week dosa festival. 

The cafe is a franchise of a four-decade-plus-old enterprise at its Ganesh Chandra Avenue address in central Calcutta. “The owners are our family friends. They lent us the cook and the expertise when we started,” smiles Lake Town boy Bhavik Singhania. His friend Aryaman Kejriwal is from Alipore.

“We have curated the menu to suit the office-going crowd as well as families with children, especially from residential parts of Salt Lake. Though we serve Chinese and basic Italian other than south Indian, we have kept it strictly vegetarian, without onion and garlic.”

In keeping with their philosophy of having a limited menu so that every item is always on offer, the festival will have eight kinds of dosas and two kinds of idlis, Masala and Cheese.

The Telegraph Salt Lake liked the Teekha Mushroom Cheese Dosa. “It is for the non-vegetarian friend accompanying a vegetarian group,” laughed Bhavik. 

Children would love the Veg Mayo Dosa and the Cheese Blast Dosa, which has cheese both stuffed within and spread atop. 

Though The Telegraph Salt Lake steered clear of Triple Chilli Dosa, Bhavik insisted it is not as spicy as it sounds. “We might be using three kinds of chillis but Kashmiri Chilli is more tangy than hot and capsicum is mild. The only kick comes from the chilli flakes.” 

The one with the most dramatic presentation is Paneer Tikka Dosa. It has slices of dosa wrapped separately around skewered paneer cubes. The dosa also is powdered with the same tikka masala used with the paneer.

But the connoiseur’s favourite is bound to be Mustard Magic Dosa which has a coat of kasundi on its inner surface. “One of our kitchen helps came up with the innovation. On the first bite itself I had realised that this was a winner.”

The dosas cost Rs 120 to 170. The festival starts on January 26.