Chain or no, Cafe Spice is one of my favorite Indian restaurants. It has an open kitchen, too, so while we waited we watched them cook, roasting meats on skewers, scooping thin dosa off the cooktop. Their lunch is a pretty good deal. Yesterday Todd and I ate and had drinks for $31 with tip. I had the South Indian lunch special, which had some familiar and some not-so-familiar items on it. One of the most pleasant surprises was the idli.

Idli are fairly bland cakes (almost like cornbread) shaped like little UFOs and made from ground rice, dal and water. I was actually pretty sure I wasn't going to finish them until I dipped them in the bowl of sambar, a spicy broth that had chiles, tomatoes and eggplant in it. It soaked the flavorful juice right up and turned out to be a great way to eat it.

The special also included a mini potato dosa, a crepe-type bread filled with curried potatoes, onions and cashews. The coconut chutney, a smooth puree, had this wonderful, milky-watery coolness, like really freshly made mozzarella has (it was awesome with the dosa).

The third item on the platter, my least favorite, was uttapam topped with onions and peppers. It turned out to look kind of like little pizzas made out of pancakes. Still OK, but not as great as the other two.