Midtown Lunch

The Indian restaurant Ruchi on Cedar St. (at Greenwich) would be easy to walk past without knowing it ever existed. The outside has been obscured by scaffolding for as long as I can remember, but if you work nearby you probably know the place for its 50% off lunch special which you wouldn’t even know about unless you’ve walked by and seen one of the many signs they have outside advertising the deal. The other day I was doing some online research that involved MenuPages.com and made the random discovery that Ruchi has south Indian specialties dosa and uttapam on the menu, nd they’re all $9.95!

I know that a $10 dosa isn’t a good deal, but it’s really all we have down in the Financial District and Tribeca, too, as far as I know. Even at the dosa places in Murray Hill, you’re going to pay $8 or more for one. Plus, these things are a filling lunch, so I was OK with it.

There are a mind-boggling number of configurations of potato, onion, mushrooms and spices available in Ruchi’s dosa. I went with the mushroom masala dosa and ended up glad that I didn’t get one with a spicy filling because the side sauces were both hot.

The filling of the dosa gets points for using fresh mushrooms and plenty of potato, spiked with mustard seeds although it was fairly bland. It definitely benefited from dips in the sambar and chutney on the side. Getting this to go means the dosa shell is going to get a little soggy, but I found it more fun and a little less gut busting than eating a giant burrito for lunch.

Ruchi, 120 Cedar St. (at Greenwich), (212) 227-8454, (212) 227-8455