Increasingly, it seems like Indian restaurants where I live are including southern Indian menu items with lentils, and I was happy to see something beyond the usual at first and then disappointed that stuff like dosa, medhu vada, etc, seemed pretty meh.
And I've tried mulligatawny soup at one of those places and been really disappointed.
But there is an Indian/Pakistani restaurant near me that has lentil soup I really liked and in fact that's what inspired me to start experimenting at home as I was afraid they would go out of business.
Some months ago I made lentil soup and through sheer luck, happened on a combination of spices and other ingredients that made it really, really good. Unfortunately I didn't take good notes, and I'm not sure how to recreate it.
So what I'm saying is lentils can be anything you want, it's all in the execution.
Increasingly, it seems like Indian restaurants where I live are including southern Indian menu items with lentils, and I was happy to see something beyond the usual at first and then disappointed that stuff like dosa, medhu vada, etc, seemed pretty meh.
Indian food in the United States has, IMO, fallen into the same trap that Mexican food has. You get one or two items (e.g. chicken tikka masala or burritos) that represent a small region of the source country and that's about it. Or maybe you'll get some more unusual regional stuff and then half hearted burritos.
So what I'm saying is lentils can be anything you want, it's all in the execution.
Apropos of nothing there's a co-op restaurant in Sydney named "Lentils as Anything". It's named after an Australian band but hey it works here too ;)
