Beverages

South Indian filter coffee is worth ordering even if you do not usually drink coffee with a meal. It is brewed slowly through a metal filter, mixed with hot milk and sugar, and poured between a tumbler and a dabara until it foams — the pouring is not a flourish, it cools and aerates the coffee.

Masala chai is the northern counterpart, boiled with the spices rather than steeped. Buttermilk — neer mor — is thinned curd with ginger, curry leaf and salt, and it does more against a hot curry than water will.

Mango lassi and rose milk are the sweet ones. Thums Up is the Indian cola, and it is more sharply spiced than the American ones.