Increasingly, it seems like Indian restaurants where I live are including southern Indian menu items with lentils, and I was happy to see something beyond the usual at first and then disappointed that stuff like dosa, medhu vada, etc, seemed pretty meh.
Indian food in the United States has, IMO, fallen into the same trap that Mexican food has. You get one or two items (e.g. chicken tikka masala or burritos) that represent a small region of the source country and that's about it. Or maybe you'll get some more unusual regional stuff and then half hearted burritos.
So what I'm saying is lentils can be anything you want, it's all in the execution.
Apropos of nothing there's a co-op restaurant in Sydney named "Lentils as Anything". It's named after an Australian band but hey it works here too ;)
Indian food in the United States has, IMO, fallen into the same trap that Mexican food has. You get one or two items (e.g. chicken tikka masala or burritos) that represent a small region of the source country and that's about it. Or maybe you'll get some more unusual regional stuff and then half hearted burritos.
So what I'm saying is lentils can be anything you want, it's all in the execution.
Apropos of nothing there's a co-op restaurant in Sydney named "Lentils as Anything". It's named after an Australian band but hey it works here too ;)