Tamara Modern Indian Cuisine

FOOD

Tamara’s Friday-through-Sunday lunch buffet gives Indian street food a place in the Cambria hotel’s dining room. There is a fondness here for small, sociable pleasures: chaat gets an attended station, savory snacks sit alongside the hot dishes, and pav bhaji brings its own bread to the meal. The selection rotates; the foods described here belong to its repertoire rather than a fixed daily lineup.

At the live pani puri station, an attendant fills the little hollow shells individually with sweet tamarind chutney and mint water. Such a small bite, receiving all that attention. There is something rather charming about giving pani puri its own attended corner in a hotel dining room. I rather like a lunch that takes its smallest snacks seriously.

Samosas and pakoras extend the invitation to linger over snacks. The samosas bring spiced potato inside pastry, while pakoras add fritters to the savory selection. These are foods that usually require an appetizer decision before dinner has even begun. Here, they can share a course with the pani puri, giving those little bites a whole portion of lunch to themselves. The buffet’s generosity is particularly welcome when the beginning of an Indian meal is your favorite part.

Pav bhaji carries the street-food thread into a dish that could happily occupy a meal of its own. The cooked vegetable bhaji comes with rolls. For those of us who love Indian breads, pav and naan in one lunch is a happy prospect. The street-food part of Tamara’s lunch stretches from a single filled puri to a dish with its own bread.

The tandoor has a place in that spread, too. Paneer tikka brings cheese marinated with Indian spices and cooked in the oven, giving the main dishes some of Tamara’s tandoori character. For a paneer enthusiast, there is pleasure in having the cheese itself receive that treatment. The appetizer course has already indulged a fondness for pastry and fritters; now the spiced paneer gives lunch another preparation to enjoy, with the tandoor taking over from the chaat attendant.

Then there is saag chicken, with chicken pieces in spinach sauce and naan alongside. This is the part of lunch for settling into a hot dish after the smaller bites, with bread as much a part of the pleasure as the chicken. Wings also enter the rotation, keeping the snack-loving diner in the conversation. Tamara leaves room for both approaches to poultry in the same Indian lunch: a sauced main and a hand-held savory bite.

The finish stays Indian, with kheer or cashew-studded payasam and carrot halwa. After pastry, fritters, rolls and naan, a pudding gives the meal a welcome spoonful of dessert. Halwa takes grated carrot and mawa, concentrated milk solids, in a sweeter direction. It is an ending with its own Indian character. Carrots have a second career here, and I rather approve of their ambition.