Review: Sangam Serves a Treasure Trove of Southern Indian Dishes in Ellicott City

After you take your seat at Ellicott City’s new Sangam Indian Cuisine, before you get engrossed in the menu, order a cup of hot chai and the cone-shaped dosa.

The heady, spiced chai will revive you and the dosa will both temper and rouse your appetite while you consider what to order next, a daunting prospect, as there were 163 items on the menu when we last visited. The dosa, a crispy geometric marvel, rises above a plate equipped with small dishes of sambal and coconut, tomato, and mint chutneys for dipping.

Dosas, thin pancakes made from a slightly fermented batter of rice and lentils, are a hallmark of Southern Indian cuisine and Sangam excels at them, with 15 versions on that impressive menu.

Sangam opened last summer and is the second restaurant from Shan Chaudhry, who opened his first place, also called Sangam Indian Cuisine, in Cockeysville in 2022. The executive chef for both restaurants is Sathish Veeraperumal, who hails from Tamil Nadu in Southern India. He cooked for Chaudhry for nearly a decade, at the now-closed Masala Pot, also in Cockeysville, before the current restaurants opened. Though Chaudhry is from Punjab, in Northern India, the food from the South fills the tables at both Sangam locations. (“Northern Indian food is boring,” he says.)

The Ellicott City location is the considerably larger restaurant, with three times the seating and an expansive outdoor patio for summer dining. Its blond wood, pale walls, twinkly lights, and lots of windows create a space that is light-filled and minimalist, a departure from many Indian restaurants.

“I hate going into any restaurant that’s heavily decorated,” says Chaudhry. “A lot of people get overwhelmed by the Taj Mahal bullshit.”

It’s the food, he says, that should be the focus. At Sangam, the arrival of the dosa signals that it is. While you break off pieces of that golden cone, order one of the thali specials. Thali is the Hindu word for plate and translates into a plate of various small dishes, not unlike the Korean banchan served at the start of meals. Sangam has five versions of thali, and they’re as pretty as they are delicious.

Then consider opting for a biryani, one of the highlights of Southern Indian cuisine and of Veeraperumal’s menu. A dish of rice and various meats, seafood, or vegetables, it’s a turmeric-hued dome of flavors. Sangam’s versions are particularly pretty, decorated with crescents of red onion and lime. The goat iteration is a splendid feast, the fork-tender bits of meat hidden inside like treasure.

Both goat and lamb are an integral part of the long menu and are sourced from a Maryland farm. Another hallmark of Southern Indian food, and an excellent appetizer, are idlis, little steamed cakes made from rice flour and paired with more sambal and chutney.

Pacing, it should be noted, is as important here as bringing a few friends, because you’ll also want to order one of the appam specials. Appams, thin, crepe-like pancakes made with rice flour and coconut milk, are another regional dish that is unusual to find and which is done extremely well here. Pale, lacey, and aromatic, they’re accompanied by little bowls of curry and are both deeply flavorful and wonderfully delicate.

As for what else to order, you could just close your eyes and see where your fork lands; you’ll be happy with whatever comes out of the kitchen. There’s a section of Indo-Chinese rice and noodle dishes, another of tandoori specials, yet another of soups; vegetarians will be overjoyed at the breadth of available options.

As you’ll have long finished your introductory dosa, order another in the form of the onion dosa. This might sound pedestrian or redundant at this point, but it is one of the highlights of the kitchen. Made with a slightly different batter that cooks into a crisp filigree on the flattop, it’s folded around a spicy potato filling and crowned with chopped onions before being served with, yes, more sambal and chutney.

Sangam’s focus on ingredients also sets it apart. The biryanis are made with different kinds of specialty rice, the paneer is made in house, fresh curry leaves dot the menu, and the sauces are bright and complex.

“Do you know what happens to curry after four hours?” asks Chaudhry, who says that he gets calls from folks asking if the restaurant serves lunch buffets. Sangam does not have a lunch buffet. Rather, what it has is an astonishing catalog of dishes almost impossible to find in the Baltimore area, which has many excellent Northern Indian restaurants but very few featuring food from the South.

Bring some friends—you’ll need help eating.

SANGAM INDIAN CUISINE: 10039 Baltimore National Pike, Unit A, Ellicott City, 410-313-8818. HOURS: Mon.-Fri. 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., 5:30-9:30 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m., 5:30- 10 p.m. PRICES: Appetizers and dosas: $7-20; mains: $17-24; desserts: $7-10. AMBIANCE: Classy dining in a suburban shopping mall.