Flavor of India triples the tastes

The Lamb Vindaloo at Flavor of India is equal measures lamb and potato chunks in a vibrant curry.
The Lamb Vindaloo at Flavor of India is equal measures lamb and potato chunks in a vibrant curry.

Several Indian restaurants have come and gone in the east side of the Market Place Shopping Center on Little Rock's North Rodney Parham Road.

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The Non-Veg Thali at Flavor of India provided a lunchtime sample of menu and off-menu dishes: (clockwise from top) chicken biryani with raita, gulub jamun (dessert), tandoori chicken, tomato soup, curried hard-boiled egg, daal (soup) and naan (upper left), with white rice at the center, plus a mango lassi beverage.

We hope, however, that Flavor of India turns out to be a keeper.

Flavor of India

Address: Market Place Shopping Center, 11121 N. Rodney Parham Road, Little Rock

Hours: 11 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5-10 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday

Cuisine: Indian, including South Indian and chaat

Credit cards: V, MC, AE, D

Alcoholic beverages: Beer and wine permit pending

Reservations: No

Wheelchair accessible: Yes

Carryout: Yes

(501) 224-4567

facebook.com/flavor…

It's in a different storefront from the one (next to Lilly's Dim Sum Then Some) that formerly housed Kebab & Curry, Amruth and Curry in a Hurry; it's in the one that most recently, before the shopping center's extensive renovation, was Rock'N Tacos and Tamales. But it's still literally a stone's throw from the popular Taj Mahal, catty-cornered and half a block away on Market Street, which undoubtedly was a factor in why those previous places didn't survive.

However, Flavor of India has several advantages its predecessors didn't. As with those, the food is very good and certainly authentic (as evidenced by the preponderance of South Asian customers). But it offers a more contemporary atmosphere, less overtly "Indian," that is kind of refreshing.

And it has three menus. The first features "standard" Indian dishes with which you'll likely be familiar (masala, paneer, korma, vindaloo and items from the tandoor). The second is a dozen and a half South Asian dishes that have not been previously available in any of the area's present or past Indian restaurants. And the third offers chaat, Indian street food, which might have been part of one or another international food festival but which we don't recall previously finding in a restaurant setting. Many of the dishes, especially almost all of the South Indian and chaat items, are vegan and/or gluten-free.

Manager Sahil Hamirani says the menu and method of service is still in flux. Some dishes, as things settle out and he sees what's selling, will disappear and others will take their place. A beer and wine license is pending. And the restaurant has recently added a lunch buffet, initially on weekends only but now available every day the restaurant is open (Tuesday-Saturday).

The decor is simple -- seating is in vinyl booths and tables with Formica-like tops that can be moved around. (The buffet, which started out inconveniently along one wall, is now conveniently placed in the middle of the floor.) There are a few Indian accents: a small Buddha statuette and some stylized elephant art on the counter, a couple of whimsical artworks on the off-white and earth-toned walls and a large flat-screen TV showing Bollywood films in high definition. But otherwise there has been no major attempt to create that kind of "hey, you might be in India" vibe.

Another screen near the counter shows pretty pictures of some of the dishes, which will be particularly helpful when it comes to some of the South Indian and chaat items. Hamirani and his staff even get a bit sassy on occasion; the small blackboard near the door, where they post specials and other information, one recent evening read, "Namaste y'all."

"Sassy" is not a bad way of describing the food, either. Everything we tried, including the usually "safe" (meaning reasonably unspicy if not exactly bland) dishes like tandoori chicken and biryani (marinated meat or vegetables tossed with long-grained basmati rice) had a pretty good zip to it.

Some of the menu items come with descriptions, but others don't. Don't be afraid to ask about anything that's unfamiliar.

We pretty much concentrated on the South Indian and chaat options, in large part because they were totally unfamiliar. Just about every dish we got was large enough to share, which is a real bonus when it comes to the chaat dishes, which are downright cheap.

The buffet ($5.99) is sufficiently new that we haven't gotten a chance to try it; Indian buffets tend toward lowest common denominator, but they are the best way to try a range of offerings. There's another excellent option here: lunch and dinner Thalis, good-size and well-varied samplers that include at least a half-dozen small dishes, sides and soups which vary daily either by availability or by the whim of the folks in the kitchen.

Our Non-Veg Thali ($9.99 for lunch, $12.99 for dinner) was a portion of chicken biryani with raita (a yogurt-based dip), tandoori chicken (with a bit of a kick), tomato soup and daal (a lentil or split-bean soup), naan (Indian bread), curried hard-boiled egg and a bowl of white rice plus, for dessert, gulub jamun (doughy balls made from milk solids in a light syrup).

And our South Indian Thali ($8.99 for lunch, $10.99 for dinner) gave us the opportunity to try a few of the South Indian menu items, including Upma (surprisingly tasty steamed cereal, not unlike polenta, with vegetables and cashews, $6.99) and Pulihora (a tamarind/lemon rice that would be our best recommendation for anybody avoiding spice, $6.99). We also got small portions of stir-fried bhindi (okra) and channa (chickpeas), rasam and sambar (two more soups, the former with a tamarind-tomato base, the latter lentil, both with a spicy bite) and kheer (a rice pudding dessert).

Eight of the 18 South Indian menu items involve Dosa, a thin, crepelike sheet of lentil-rice dough served either by itself ($7.99), wrapped into a cone shape and served with dipping chutneys, or wrapping something else. The triangular, quesadillalike Cheese Dosa ($8.99), two layers of dosa with a thin layer of paneer (similar to Indian cottage cheese), resembling a slice of pizza, was moderately tasty by itself; dipped in either ginger or peanut chutney, it was pretty lively. And it came with a little side bowl of spicy sambar.

We covered about half the chaat menu with generally good results. We can certainly recommend the Papdi Chaat ($4.99), which you might call the Indian version of nachos -- a layer of papris (crisp-fried wafers) topped with bits of boiled potato, chickpeas, onions, tomatoes, mild chilis and sev (small, crunchy chickpea-flour noodles). It was delicious, even without the tamarind and mint chutneys it was supposed to come with but which didn't quite make it to our table.

Unless you don't like cilantro, as the flavor is pretty pronounced, try the Samosa Chaat ($4.99), conical crisp-fried, veggie-filled dumplings in a chickpea stew with sev, onions and cilantro. If you're looking for something crunchy, go for the Bhel Puri ($4.99), puffed rice tossed with puris, sev, cilantro and onions. Both come with sides of tamarind and green chutneys. They would be a little messy if you were eating them on the street. The Pav Bhaji ($6.99) would be easier to handle, a tangy, tasty vegetable curry served with chopped onion and tomato for accent, all of which you load onto a pair of fresh rolls.

Along more "standard" lines, Flavor of India's Lamb Vindaloo ($9.99; chicken, $8.99, and goat, $9.99, are other options) was delicious -- unusually, at least in this area, about half lamb chunks and half potato chunks in a spicy red-orange curry sauce; we asked for it medium and it was pretty close to perfect for our spice quotient.

The Gosht Biryani ($10.99) was a huge plate of excellently curried rice, enough to feed at least two; "gosht," which in many places is lamb or mutton, here is goat, and while there was a fair amount of it tossed into the rice, and it was surprisingly moist and tender, but -- as is typical of biryani dishes (it was also the case with the chicken biryani we had on the Thali plate) -- it was not separated from the bones. So be wary. It comes with a bowl of raita, crunchy vegetable bits in a tangy, slightly fluid yogurt base.

Speaking of yogurt, we'd recommend accompanying spicier dishes with one of four lassis -- mango, sweet, salty or Badam (almond), $2.49-$2.99 -- as dairy is a proven anodyne for spice-induced heartburn. Unfortunately, they're all prepackaged in 12-ounce plastic cups, so if you don't space it out properly you'll have to buy two.

Do spring for a side of naan -- the plain tandoori ($1.49), garlic ($2.49) and particularly the Peshwari ($3.49, incorporating coconut shreds, raisins and almonds, almost a meal in itself) were excellent. So was our Papad ($1.49), a crispy lentil-based flatbread that the kitchen, as evidenced by a little oily dew, makes to order.

Many of the dishes arrive at the table in clean, shiny aluminum bowls; standard food-service tableware comes wrapped in an industrial-strength paper napkin. Service was generally good but we were occasionally left with empty water glasses -- not good when your only beverage is water, or when you've already run through two mango lassis.

Weekend on 09/24/2015

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