knocked on my ass at akbar in MDR

after a fairly average outing to an indian lunch buffet earlier in the week that failed to bridge the gap between quality and quantity (plus they had some of the worst nan i've ever had in my life. cold, doughy, and faintly smelling of garlic with none of the promised taste), i was quite excited to return to akbar, a smaller indian restaurant on washington just west of lincoln in marina del rey. my friend and i had eaten at akbar once before, and i've described it as "rustic indian". there were raisins and sliced peanuts (or possibly some other nut?) in my chicken tiki masala, and the dahl had an almost rough consistency to it, thickened by the healthy scoop of yogurt mixed in . it was quite different than the almost soup-like dahl i've had in other places, and was a welcome interpretation. another neat feature of akbar, which i completely missed the first time around, is that they have a spiciness rating next to each lunch dish. it might sound gimmicky, but the numerical rating from 1 to 5 is actually quite informative, as well as giving me the perfect opportunity to call my lunch buddy a "momma's boy" and order a dish two spiciness levels up from his. the chicken tiki masala from last time was a 2, so this time i ordered the lamb vandaloo, rated at a 4, at which point the waitress confirmed that i wanted the dish prepared as a 4 (what's THAT supposed to mean??), and my friend ordered the chicken aamras, some kind of mango chicken rated at a mockingly pathetic 2.


the menu with its little numbers of death


my lamb vandaloo, rated at a tongue-searing 4


my friend's chicken aamras, taken from the children's menu and rated 2

the dishes arrived with some piping hot, and very delicious, nan which i immediately dipped into the rich vandaloo sauce that was surprisingly un-spicy. so un-spicy in fact that i began to wonder if they messed up the order, but i shrugged it off and continued on, enjoying the choice cuts of lamb that were thankfully absent of that awkward fatty stuff. five minutes later though, i was surprised to find that i had a decent two-zone sweat going on, as both my brow and my upper lip were damp with respect for the dish. but by ten minutes in, i had officially reached the point where my mouth was so lit ablaze with the sting of capsaicin, that even the temperature of the food was enough to bring pain. while i love spicy food and enjoy a good sweat, i generally don't like food this spicy, as i spend more time doing damage control (rationing water, cutting the food with starch, desperately scanning the room for dairy) than actually enjoying the food. also, when i get to this point, it's all too easy for whoever i'm eating with to give me a well deserved "i told you so". but all that aside, once the storm had passed and i had the dish under control, it was very good. unfortunately the dahl didn't have any heat-neutralizing yogurt in it this time, and it seemed a bit drier than last time, but it was also still good. overall, a pretty good indian place, just respect those little numbers on the menu-