It's not enough anymore to say you're having "Indian" for dinner, just as you can't just eat "American" food or "Mexican." You've got to know whether the cuisine you're trying is from the south, a particular state, or by the ocean. If you went to Maine, you wouldn't expect hush puppies and if you go to Udupi Cafe, you shouldn't expect all of the dishes you find in most Indian restaurants.

Udupi, in Rancho Cordova, has a sign listing it as "Healthy Indian Vegetarian." I had never heard of the word udupi, so I looked it up and found that it is the name of a town in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. The cuisine there is vegetarian and traditionally also uses no onions or garlic. Coconut, jackfruit, mango chutney, and grain-based dishes are common, while the filled crepes called masala dosa originated there. (You can find a fascinating summary of different styles of Indian cuisine at this site.)

Six of us ordered willy-nilly off the extensive menu and soon began getting a dizzying array of dishes to try. We had to try dosa, of course, and got the Masala Dosai ($7.50), filled with potatoes and onions and the Chetti Nadu Califlower Dosai ($7.50) with onion, cauliflower, tomato, and chetti nadu spice. (I guess they don't subscribe to the no onions and garlic rule.) They were impressivly big, thin wheat crepes, folded and filled, with three condiment dishes perched on top. Those included a smooth ground coconut chutney, a sambar (a split pea and vegetable stew), and a spicy chile-based chutney. Both dosai were tasty, but the creamy potato-filled version was fantastic. We also saw another table get a Paper Dosai, which is a very thin, crispy, rolled version of the crepe that was so long it took four plates to hold it all!

The rest of our dinner included: