Viva Artesia

Ever since moving to LA last Fall, Mr. Octopus and I have been on a mission to find some decent Indian food. We had been spoiled by the good and plentiful Indian options in NYC and were growing impatient with the offerings in LA. Well, I'm happy to say that we have finally found a good place. It's called Udupi Palace and it's in the city of Artesia.

Artesia is home to "Little India," which is basically a few blocks of Pioneer Boulevard with Indian restaurants, sari palaces, music stores, Bollywood movie theaters and cricket fields. For those coming from NYC, Little India will look very little indeed, but here in LA, where there aren't nearly as many Indian people, this will do.


Mr. Octopus and I made our first visit to Little India last weekend. Hungry as ever, we made a beeline for the most crowded restaurant on the strip, Udupi Palace, which we figured had to be good. Udupi is a South Indian vegetarian restaurant specializing in dosa. Yummm. We sat down, ordered on the spot and waited with bated breath for our dosas to arrive. We were not disappointed. Not one bit. In fact, the dosa was even better than any we had had at Pongal (our favorite dosa place in NYC). It even prompted Mr. Octopus to say, "Okay, I can now say that LA has the best food in the world." Here is a picture of his dosa. Mine actually tasted better, but I'd eaten half of it by the time I remembered I had my camera.