It’s not a great location, near the corner of Cahuenga and Santa Monica in Hollywood. But they’ve fixed it up, and inside it’s colorful and clean.
There are three menus: An Indian menu, a Mexican menu, and a fusion menu. There are over 100 items just on the Indian menu. So you might be wise to think about what you want before you arrive. Otherwise you can get lost in the choices.
We got our order to go, and we live about 15 minutes away. So by the time we began eating it was about 25 minutes after the food was prepared. This is not a big deal for many of the items, but fried items lose their texture. So I didn’t order the chicken tikka fries, which sounded delicious. But I made the mistake of ordering vegetable samosas. They come two to an order. The taste was fine, especially with a combination of the four sauces they give you. But it wasn’t as crisp as it would have been if eaten onsite.
The chicken tikka burrito was fun solely for the novelty. It’s basically a saucy chicken tikka with rice, cilantro and onions wrapped in a tortilla. The Indian flavor profile is much more forward than most of the burritos one finds at Mexican restaurants. So I enjoyed it a great deal. Again, the sauces brought it to life.
This place is owned by the people who own Acra, the Indian restaurant on Cahuenga and Yucca. I like the food there, although the wait is often interminable. So I ordered the lamb vindaloo with naan. The lamb was tender, a little gamey, which I like, and spicy. Unfortunately, like the samosas, Naan doesn’t travel very well. It was a little tough. Flavor was fine, but hard to tear.
Overall, I like it. It’s small, so I won’t like it once it starts getting crowded. But for now I’m working it into the rotation, particularly since I need to work my way through the vast menu.