There's a new Indian restaurant in downtown Palo Alto, on Lytton Avenue (one block north of University) between Waverly and Florence. It's on the north side of the street in a small white building (I didn't notice whether they have a sign up yet). Today was the first day they were open for lunch. Some friends and I tried it and were all very favorably impressed. I'll definitely go back and try it again.
Their lunch is a buffet that costs $5.95. There were vegetable samosas, about 7 different main-dish selections, all but two of which were vegetarian (the other two were chicken). Accompanying those were rice, fresh salad, a variety of sauces (raita, tamarind, mint, and two hot sauces) and a creamy rice dessert. In addition, you get to choose any of the breads on their regular menu (9 choices) and they bring it to your table fresh. We chose the garlic naan, which was wonderful.
The people who run the restaurant seem very friendly, and not too discombobulated, considering they just opened. I noticed the buffet being replenished regularly while we were there, and the food certainly tasted very fresh. The dinner menu looks fairly typical of most of the Indian restaurants in the area selection-wise, though perhaps a bit pricier than many.
Here are the details:
Janta Indian Cuisine
369 Lytton Avenue, Palo Alto
415-462-5903
hours: lunch daily 11:00 am to 2:30 pm
dinner daily 5:00 pm to 10:00 pn
catering, takeout, private parties
The restaurant is very small, so I'd suggest calling ahead if there are many in your party.
BTW, as we were finishing up I asked the woman who seemed to be running things whether she had heard of the Internet (and mentioned that I was going to post a message to the food bboard). She said yes, she'd heard of it. A friend of hers "gave the Internet" to three of her children for Christmas so that she could keep in touch with them... Interesting to see what all the recent publicity about the national information highway will do to "net grammar".
Sharon Perl
DEC Systems Research Center
[email removed]San Francisco Bay Area, CA