Mysore Café

Address
2819 Hennepin Ave., Mpls., 612-871-1110

The Scene
Mysore Café opened earlier this year in one of Hennepin Avenue’s most cursed spaces (the ghost of Sri Lanka Curry House), most recently the site of the disaster that was Antoine’s Creole Maison. Out went the Mardi Gras décor package from Kmart and in came Indian accents from Pier 1, along with a minimally impactful paint job. Mysore’s entryway may earn top honors for being the least inspiring of any in the city, but go in anyway. Birkenstocked vegans and clusters of South Indian expats have a new reason to rejoice—despite the location’s history and desperate need for a major renovation. (Start by ripping out the elevated street-front window tables; what am I, a goldfish?)

Our Take
Mysore (rhymes with LeSueur) serves some superb vegetarian Indian cuisine, also featured at a dirt-cheap weekday buffet. Despite Mysore’s indifferent service and occasionally missing menu items, I am addicted to the food style here. Nalapak in Columbia Heights, my favorite vegetarian Indian restaurant, composes fare the way Jackson Pollock painted—with an explosive splatter of flavors. Mysore’s food is more like the oeuvre of Barnett Newman, an abstractionist who constructed color field paintings. Like Newman, Mysore uses two or three colors in bold swaths to create art. The chefs cook simply, making Mysore the perfect place for a newcomer to discover South Indian food. The chat papri, a cool, sweet-tart Indian classic combining vegetables, yogurt, chutneys, and chickpea crisps, was a good way to start the meal. The breads were top-notch, and I loved the onion paratha. It would have taken many visits to tackle all the good dishes on the massive menu. Lucky for me, many of them fall into common genres. Superb in all their forms were the dosai, the large triangular affairs stuffed modestly like a crepe, and the giant uttapam pancakes topped like a pissaladière. The saag paneer was executed with as light a hand as I remember, and the dal curry was as perfectly citrusy as it is often misrepresented elsewhere. Gobi is a must-try spiced-cauliflower-fritter sauté. For dessert, try the rice pudding. It must be fantastic because every time I ordered it there was none left.

Open and Shut
Mysore has a confusing habit. It loves discouraging diners from setting foot in the place during the waning throes of its meal service—it even went so far as to ask me not to come during the last half hour it was open. With dining rooms that are never full, even in peak times, I found this downright puzzling. Many restaurants are guilty of the cardinal sin of chasing away customers whose only crime is wanting to eat there. If you say you are open at 9:45, seat me. If you want to go home at 10:00, close at 9:30.