Far more successful was the paneer kadai jugalbandi, consisting of a mildly flavorful house-made cheese, cut into rectangles and first seared on a skillet, then combined, in a tamarind-infused sauce, with a potpourri of peppers, onions and mushrooms. Wendy Carlson for The New York TimesР”Р„mong the vegetarian choices, Kolam dal, a lentil dish, suffered from a runniness that verged on being insipid, despite a harmonious blend of cumin, garlic and ginger. The chicken dishes include nilgiri kozhi. Vindaloo, normally one of the hotter items offered in Indian restaurants, was similarly lackluster in the shrimp version, largely because its sweet, tangy red sauce was neither very spicy nor reflective of much complexity. Although moist and flaky, this entree's seven sizable slabs of salmon were spiced with a barely discernible mixture of ginger, white pepper and saffron. Though the sauce was extraneous with the lamb, it might have come in handy with Samundari toofan, which had also been prepared in the tandoori oven.

Juxtaposed with this fine example of Kashmirian seasoning was an accompanying masala sauce, based on tomatoes, that was orange in color and as sweet as honey. Flash-fired in a tandoori oven and delivered on a sizzling skillet with a heaping farrago of succotash-like vegetables, the chops offered subtle influences of yogurt, mace, lemon and nutmeg. More tender still, and a tad less gamy, were the Chameli chops, a quartet of cuts with rib bone attached. The lamb, as full-flavored as mutton, was surprisingly tender and reasonably lean. It is a luscious curry heavily accented with sesame seeds, bell peppers, cardamom and just a hint of cashews. Of the lamb entrees, we found mamsam koora, a dish with origins in the city of Hyderabad, in southeastern India, to be a wonderful choice. Nilgiri kozhi, which also featured moist chunks of chicken breast, was milder but just as delightful, with a moderate presence of chili peppers and a creamy consistency, colored green from a generous harvest of cilantro and curry leaves.Р”Р„ppetizers include a puduvai seafood dish. An abundance of black pepper contributed agreeable fieriness to this chicken dish, with its lip-tingling heat mitigated by a velvety-smooth texture, and undertones of tamarind, ginger and vanilla. One of the more notable items that we tried over several visits was kozhi Chettinad, an entree associated with the state of Tamil Nadu, in southern India. Its menu provides an excellent introduction to the regional diversity of India's food, touching down in places that span the subcontinent from the Goa coast north to Kashmir, with plenty of Punjabi, Bengali, Keralan and Gujarati options in between. Kolam, which opened in 2003 and is one of seven Indian restaurants operated by the Coromandel group, also makes an art of combining nuts, complex spices and yogurt- and ghee-based sauces, often with sumptuous results. In Newtown, Kolam is a restaurant, one that evokes that art form in a combination of geometric designs that color its dark velour wall coverings and valances. In India, kolam is the decorative practice of stenciling rice-flour patterns on the ground.

Dave erickson newtown ct