An Indian Standout in Alexandria

A lot of Indian restaurants have opened here in recent years, and most are known more for low prices than for the quality or variety of their cooking. It's a treat to run across an exception. Dishes of India is inexpensive but with cooking that's a cut above most of the competition. The credit goes to chef Ramanand Bhatt; during his 15 years of cooking in the area, he has run the kitchens at Rajajee in DC and Haandi in Falls Church and Bethesda.

The basement location of Dishes of India has been home to several restaurants, most recently a seafood house, and not much of the decor has changed except for the pink tablecloths. ("Pink," Diana Vreeland once remarked, "is the navy blue of India.")

Indian friends who went with me to Dishes of India say that their strategy for evaluating an Indian restaurant is to order the simple, familiar dishes that most Indian restaurants have on their menus. If these are prepared carefully, the rest will be, too.

Samosas, nicely crusted and seasoned, passed this test, as did the crisp vegetable pakoras and moist chicken tikka. The breads, one of the glories of Indian cookery, are also first-rate. The onion kulcha is the best version of this bread I've had in any local Indian restaurant. "The aloo paratha," said my Indian friend, after trying the tandoor-cooked whole-wheat bread stuffed with mashed potatoes and peas, "is better than my mother's."

The tandoori style of cooking--in the white-hot heat of a clay oven called a tandoor--originated in the northwest of India, but it is now found in most Indian restaurants. Don't miss the tandoori chicken or the tandoori lamb chops at Dishes of India. The chicken is what tandoori chicken should be--moist and permeated with the flavor of its yogurt-and-spice marinade. Lamb chops are tender and beautifully spiced. Shish kebab, minced-lamb kebabs, are crusted on the outside and moist and spicy within. One of the few disappointments is tandoori salmon, which was dry.

Good choices from the large selection of chicken and lamb specialties include murg makhani, chicken in a creamy tomato sauce with butter, and lamb karahi, first cooked in the tandoor then stir-fried with tomatoes, onions, herbs, and spices. Among the vegetable dishes, try channa masala, chickpeas cooked in a delicious, gingery blend of spices, or beinga bhartha, tandoor-roasted eggplant mashed with tomatoes and onion.

Indian desserts are, for most Westerners, an acquired taste. They do not appear to be ordered frequently at Dishes of India--all tasted of the refrigerator.