The Legendary Dosa Man of NYC | Street Food Icons

I wanted to be in New York because when I get the lottery green card visa, out of 50 states, I can go any state I want to, but I chose New York. Why? Because it's the capital of the world. Special pan de cherry, pretty spicy. Any water, soda, ginger beer? This is the first vegan dosa cart in the world. You keep you healthy, I'm wealthy. That's good. New York is known to be like hot dog and, you know, cheese kebab and stuff. No one expects from the tiny cart like this. We are providing good healthy food. My name is Kandaswamy Thirukumar and the people call me Thiru, the dosa man. I operate NY Dosa's vegetarian vegan dosa cart in Washington Square Park. This one I'm doing past 17 years. This is my 18th year going now. Masala dosa, are you going to win more or cash? Dosa is a plate made of rice and lentil. It's naturally fermented, totally gluten-free. Then serve with the coconut chutney and a lentil soup. Dosa gives you extra flavor when you dip it and eat. This is like four different lentils, three different rice. Nobody has that. That's my grandmother's recipe. We have samosas and then we have a Sri Lankan roti curry. Special pan de cherry, the most popular lunch, is a dosa with potato and vegetable. You can come and take some shots while I'm cooking now. You're getting a usual? The other two are spicy. Oh, terrific. Are you kidding? He's the best. I've been in here for years. You can tell it's good because you have people coming from New Delhi who come here to eat. You want to have a quick look? Check it out, Andrea. You need more potato? That's good. People know me all around the world. They always support me. Still, you can see they're waiting for food. I don't want to... They're ready now? Okay. Okay, go ahead. I'm listening. Thank you, Debbie. How's it going, man? Yeah, good, man. Yeah, I'm originally from Sri Lanka. I speak the South Indian Tamil. I came to the United States like almost 25 years ago. In Sri Lanka, in the beach area, not many restaurants on those days, so we got to take some food from home and make it right by the beach, right after swimming and stuff. That's how I first learned, and then I learned from my grandmother and everything. I love bikes, too. Professional racing motorcycle, yeah. After I got married, I stopped. I had a very fun life. Then after that, slowly the war started, civil war between Tamil Tigers and the government, and I won the lottery green card, so that's why I came to the United States. I came with my wife and one daughter. Third day, I started working on the construction field. Then I was working in the gas station, and then I was working in the iron factory, and then I'm helping my friends, you know, in Tosa Hut in Flushing. Can't have everything when you come to New York, you know. Got to slowly, slowly work hard, and then you can have a good life, you know what I'm saying? The beginning, when I start the car, it's like everything went, almost cost me like $13,000. I saved some money, and then I got some money from the credit cards, you know. Then I pay monthly installment. Interest, interest. 2001, December, we started. Those days, like, you know, very tough, you know. You got to be ready for anything. Otherwise, I won't be not stepping to New York from Sri Lanka, you know what I'm saying? Spicy as usual, right? You got it, brother. There you go. New York is a very busy city. Everyone running, you know, very, no time for nothing. So they're craving for good, healthy food, you know. That's why I started to do this, you know, and become a hit now. Usual, right? Extra, extra, extra. Fresh food give you natural energy. That's why all the vegans are very happy, you know. Thank you so much. See you tomorrow. That's from famous newspaper, Indian newspaper. The villager is famous in this village right here, Greenwich Village. They select the famous people twice in this magazine. Look different, right? Especially cooking food. My grandmother told me you had to put a lot of love into it. If you don't love what you do, it's very hard for you to come up in the business. Even I didn't think in this beginning I will be like this famous. Now it's like worldwide, I have fans like 45 countries, you know. Let me just take a picture also with this girl. She come from Houston, Texas. Thanks, man. Thank you so much. Mine too. Okay, cool. I found him on the internet and I read his whole life story and it's like, I have to eat there. The food was awesome. I got the special Pondicherry. These are most popular dosa, special Pondicherry. Potato, fresh veggies, hummus, dry coconut, everything. It was great and I sent pictures to all my friends and they're all drooling and they're jealous. The main thing is we want to maintain the quality. So we don't want to disappoint the people who come back from all over the world, you know. This is my own creation. Now even in India, they make the Pondicherry. Spicy Pondicherry, one samosa with all the sauce. Very early in the morning, I start cooking. You know, first I wake up in my house and, you know, do some yoga, you know, meditation. Then warm up the car and get to the Queen. This is kind of like little Indian town. So you get all the Indian stores around here. Then on the way, I buy vegetables in Patel Brothers, where we stopped. Yeah, get some vegetables for the next day's soup and stuff. Thank you. The city now for the way we're going to set up by NYU. We start at like 11, 11.30 and then we run out of food by three o'clock. Then come here, set up everything. He come and help me out to bring the stuff from the car and stuff. As soon as we're ready, people are ready to eat. This is Lakshmi. She bring, yeah, bring and then this is Murugan, his defense guard. I'm a big Shiva fan, you know. That's why the symbol of Shiva. One dollar, yeah. She's just graduated from Columbia University, yeah. Economics double major. I have a lot of NYU volunteers, a lot of students, you know. We keep everything under $10 because some students have no money. And some poor people also can't have food, you know. I want food for everybody. Man's really friendly. I remember once, I didn't have any cash on me. So, you know, I'll hold it right there. I'll run right back. I'll go to the ATM. He said, no, no, just take it. You can pay me another time. So it was great. And ever since then, I come back. Yeah, and it's cheap. I'm on a budget. It's really cheap. It's really good. I got a samosa dosa. It's actually not on the menu. But, like, he decided to put the samosa instead of the parita to make a samosa dosa. Hey, hey, do you have dosa? Let me get a powdered cherry, double samba and a samosa. Okay, no problem. Where are you? The guy in the limousine. You want the dosa? We want dosa and samosa. The double samba. When I started business here, I couldn't see. But now I'm happy. I can see the whole trade center from here. The best view from here. I'm New Yorker, yeah. Me, of course, man. I've lived here 25 years. That's why it represents New York dosas, you know. Powdered cherry, medium. Masala, pretty spicy. New York dosa, next five years, you will see us in the park. Right after our contract expires in five years, we don't know. We might continue doing or maybe no more. Right now, I want to do as soon as I have energy in my body. So when I have no energy, then I'm going to stop and do something else, you know. Try to be happy because in this world, everything is temporary, you know. So you should be happy, you know. That's the way my grandmother taught me. Nothing is permanent. So you should be happy what you got.