Dosa Hunt

What happens when you put pianist Vijay Iyer, music critic Amrit Singh, and members of Das Racist, Vampire Weekend, Yeasayer and Neon Indian into an Indian disco van to track down NYC's best dosa? Plenty of Bobby Jindal jokes, heartfelt extolling of the virtues of coconut-hair oil, and even more in this journey deep into the heart of that virtuous South Asian crepe. The first in a proposed series of culinary escapades through the foodie fantasia that stretches from Jackson Heights to Curry Hill, Dosa Hunt is the brainchild of Amrit Singh, executive editor of Stereogum.com. Prompted by a Soho-made 'fusion' dosa with cheese in it (gasp!), Singh assembles a who's-who of New York's brown musical cognoscenti to set things straight: Indian Americans from all regions and musical genres like Iyer, Das Racist's Himanshu Suri and Ashok Kondabolu, and Yeasayer's Anand Wilder, as well as two honorary brown brothers, vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij (Persian) and Neon Indian's Alan Palomo (Mexican). Moving from Manhattan to that mecca of the South Asian Diaspora, Jackson Heights, Queens, the crew encounter dosa after dosa while eating, ranting and bantering. Equal parts culinary adventure, a portrait of the Indian American talent reshaping the musical landscape, and commentary on the cultural politics of brown, Dosa Hunt is an intimate insider's jaunt through South Asian Americana, New York-style.