Tabla Indian Restaurant Clermont

FOOD

Tabla’s lunch buffet gives Indian curries some lively Indo-Chinese company. Butter chicken is entirely at home here, but so are paneer Manchurian and General Tso’s vegetables. That’s the pleasure of this particular spread: familiar curry favorites share lunch with Chinese-influenced preparations, and vegetables get attention in both. Selections vary, with rice, naan, starters and sweets rounding out the meal.

The butter chicken’s creamy tomato sauce supplies a familiar richness among the Indian dishes. Chicken 65 takes a more spirited approach, with fried chicken finished with chiles and curry leaves. It’s a good example of the Indian cooking beyond the sauce-filled curry pans. Fish curry also belongs to this lunch, bringing seafood into a spread with plenty of chicken and vegetables.

Paneer Manchurian makes that Indian/Indo-Chinese pairing especially appealing. Indian cheese becomes part of a sauced Indo-Chinese dish, with General Tso’s vegetables alongside. If you know paneer best in a curry, its Manchurian outing is an intriguing variation on a familiar ingredient. The vegetables join that same Chinese-influenced part of the spread, so the meatless choices get to participate in both sides of Tabla’s cooking.

Dal tadka and aloo gobi bring the meal back to Indian vegetable cooking. Yellow lentils tempered with ghee, herbs and spices give the dal its seasoned, substantial character. With aloo gobi, cauliflower and potatoes are cooked with onions, tomatoes, ginger and Indian spices. These are familiar everyday dishes in a decidedly dressed-up room. The lentils needn’t put on airs.

Vegetable biryani adds saffron-flavored basmati rice, marinated vegetables, fresh herbs and spices to that meatless selection. The vegetables and herbs make it a more involved dish than the jeera rice, with its simpler cumin seasoning. Garlic naan completes the bread-and-rice part of lunch, its garlic topping a welcome bit of extravagance beside those everyday preparations.

The smaller things have their charms, too. Vegetable samosas tuck potatoes and peas inside pastry, with tamarind and mint chutneys bringing an Indian street-food feel to this corner of the buffet. Colorful fryums add a playful snack alongside them. A samosa with chutney is a perfectly respectable reason to pause over the starters.

Raita, onion and lemon complete the assortment of Indian accompaniments. The yogurt-based raita sits comfortably among the richer dishes, while hot sauce is there for anyone who wants more heat. Salad and fresh fruit keep the spread from being entirely about hot food. They make a welcome, simpler interlude among the curries, fried chicken and filled pastries.

Then dessert gets pleasantly dainty. Chocolate and mango mousse come in individual cups. The chocolate cups wear dark swirls; the mango cups have bright yellow piped tops and little colored toppings. A rather cheerful pair. They look quite comfortable in Tabla’s dressed-up surroundings, two little sweets after a lunch of curries, vegetables and naan. Chocolate or mango is a manageable dilemma. And the cups are small enough to make a very persuasive case for both.