Something for everyone at Flavor of India

Feb. 25, 2007

There are good things for everyone at Flavor of India.

We saw this clearly two Saturdays ago, watching well-behaved children from several non-Indian families gleefully demolishing the lunch buffet.

They heaped their plates not only with Basmati rice and mango ice cream, but with dishes named Chicken Tikka Masala, Tandoori Chicken and Dal Makhani.

If you're new to Indian food, the lunch buffet is a good introduction. For $7.99, you can sample appetizers, several main dishes, rice, bread and relishes. All buffet items are mildly spiced.

But you won't begin to understand the wonders of Indian cuisine until you go for dinner, where everything is made fresh to your order.

Three appetizers, $3.25 each, make especially fine beginnings. Onion Bhaji are ragged little clumps of onion strands dipped in spiced chickpea flour and deep-fried until dark reddish-brown and chewy-crisp. Pakoras do the same for vegetable tidbits and herbs in a lighter chickpea batter. Vegetable Samosas are cute crisp-fried dough cones filled with a delicious soft mash of potatoes, peas, spices and herbs.

Papadams also are wonderful starters: impossibly thin lentil-flour crackers that can be ordered roasted — the tastier option — or fried, $2. Eat with the mildly tingly mint chutney.

Flavor of India also makes excellent leavened breads by hand; don't miss them. Each variety of naan, flatbread baked in the restaurant's clay-lined tandoor oven, emerges steaming-hot and pillowy, with crisp edges and a little welcome char.

We typically order the plain naan, $1.99, or the Kulcha, filled with glassy-sweet onions, $2.50. On special occasions, Audrey insists on Kashmiri Naan with its confetti of almonds, cashews and dried cherries, $3.50.

On your first visit, try a Mango Lassi — a luscious drink of yogurt and mango pulp, $2.99 — then order what those well-behaved children were after.

Tandoori Chicken is marinated in citrus juice, salt and yogurt, then tandoor-roasted quickly at high temperatures, $8.95. It emerges shockingly red but mildly spiced.

Chicken Tikka Masala — perhaps the world's favorite Indian dish — simmers boneless Tandoori Chicken meat in a deliciously buttery, saffron-yellow sauce with a touch of cashew paste, $10.95.

All vegetarians — and meat-eaters yearning for revelation — should order Dal Makhani, $8.95, a masterpiece of India's brilliant vegetarian cuisine. Our favorite entrée, Dal Makhani ("buttered beans") is an elegant concoction of black lentils slow-cooked for six hours in butter, yogurt, ginger, onions, garlic and soft spices, then ennobled by double-thick cream and fresh herbs.

Ordered mild, the sweet, pure flavors of lentil and butter predominate. Ordered medium, additions of green chili and other spices balance the richness with gentle warmth and notes of sweet mustard.

To make the most of meals at Flavor of India, remember:

1. Curry is not an Indian word or taste. When Indian restaurants use the term, it simply means a dish with sauce and spices. Curry powder is a British colonial invention. Indian cooks don't use it in Indian food; it makes everything taste the same.

2. Most Indian dishes combine several spices, but need not be spicy-hot. As Indian food authority Madhur Jaffrey observed, "Many Indians ... prefer their food mild." At Flavor of India, you choose. Any dish ordered mild or medium still will be flavorful — and authentic.

3. Most Indian entrées should be eaten with a starch, not alongside one. If your dish has lots of sauce — always the tastiest part — mix some into your rice before eating them together. Dishes with less sauce usually are best scooped up bite by bite in little folds of flatbread.

4. Most Indian meals include a relish for flavor and variety, $2.50 each. Try the cooling, salty-tart raita (yogurt sauce) or the sweet mango chutney. Jeff can't do without the splendidly hot Mixed Pickle.

On your second visit, after ordering your Mango Lassi, try one of these entrées:

Vegetable Korma braises green beans, carrots, cauliflower and diced potatoes in butter, cashew paste and thick cream, $9.95.

Mango Chicken envelops succulent dark and white meat in a creamy-thick sauce fragrant with mango and perfectly balanced between sweet, rich, spicy and tart, $10.95.

Fish Masala bathes flaky-moist mahi-mahi in a sprightly gravy of well-browned onions, yogurt, coconut milk, ginger, red chili and other warm spices, $12.95.

Succulent Chicken Jalfrezi glazes dark meat, crisp green peppers and onions in tomato, garlic, ginger, red chili, cumin, turmeric and coriander, $9.95.

The menu describes the wonderful Spinach Lamb poetically as a "crackling of cumin and crunches of lamb finished in spinach," $10.95. Lumps and shards of boneless lamb are enfolded in spiced creamed spinach. Delicious at any heat level, from mild to very hot.

You'll want one of the refreshing house-made deserts, $2.99. The best are Khir — a thin rice pudding with cardamom and pistachios — and Mango Kulfi, a dense ice made of reduced milk.

On your third visit? Just follow your fancy.

Main Course, the Leader-Telegram's restaurant review column, runs the fourth Sunday of the month. Diners' Notebook, a sampling of favorite restaurant offerings, runs the second Tuesday of the month.

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