Kohinoor Indian Restaurant

FOOD

Some of Kohinoor’s lunch begins the night before. Tandoori chicken spends the night in yogurt and Indian spices before being grilled in a clay oven. That preparation sits behind a buffet where serving yourself is the easy part. The changing spread brings together oven cooking, curries and biryani, with samosas, chutneys and a small dessert selection completing an Indian restaurant meal.

The clay oven also supplies naan, bringing bread and tandoori chicken into the same kitchen story. Naan arrives at the table rather than waiting on the buffet counter, with garlic and butter versions among the breads served at lunch. Garlic naan incorporates garlic, herbs and cilantro. Between the marinated chicken and the bread, the oven has two quite different jobs to do. Happily, bread delivery is someone else’s job. Stuffed specialty naans on the separate bread menu remain à la carte orders.

From the oven, lunch moves into the tomato-and-cream territory shared by butter chicken and paneer masala. Kohinoor’s butter chicken, or makhani, puts boneless chicken tikka into a creamy tomato-based sauce. Paneer masala brings homemade cheese into a sauce with bell peppers, onion and spices. Soft pieces of paneer sit in a thick curry with onion. These two dishes connect the buffet directly to preparations on the restaurant’s regular menu, with chicken and cheese carrying their respective curries.

Vegetarian cooking is part of Kohinoor’s buffet repertoire, alongside the meat dishes, with other vegetable preparations changing through the selection. This is where the buffet’s small scale can be useful: several curries can share one meal, and a diner needn’t commit the whole lunch to a single entrée. An unusually diplomatic arrangement for a table of differing appetites.

Rice takes lunch beyond those curry preparations. Chicken biryani combines chicken and basmati with saffron and spices; goat biryani is another rotating possibility. Plain basmati appears as well. This gives the rice selection two roles within the meal: a prepared specialty with meat cooked into it, and a simpler accompaniment. Chicken, meanwhile, turns up in curry, from the clay oven and in biryani—a fair amount of culinary versatility from one bird.

Samosas, salad and chutneys bring the appetizer-and-accompaniment side of the meal into the same spread. Pastry belongs here along with the oven bread and rice, adding another preparation to a fairly compact lunch. The chutneys sit alongside the savory food, and salad makes room for a cold side among the hot dishes. Together, these smaller parts keep the meal from being entirely about the main curry pans.

Dessert gives milk another role in a meal that already uses yogurt for the chicken marinade and homemade cheese for paneer masala. Milky rice pudding is among the changing finishes, bringing rice into the sweet part of lunch. Fruit custard and sliced fruit are other possibilities in the dessert selection. A small sweet course, after a kitchen’s worth of savory preparations.