RESTAURANT REVIEW : India’s Sweet Richness in Abundance

India doesn’t have a “Larousse Gastronomique,” and the lack of a standard authority on food makes the menu at Mother India, a sensational new snack and sweet restaurant in Canoga Park, a bit problematic. Even Indians are bound to be a little baffled by all this inventory.

We’re talking foods from Gujarat, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, states that stand about as far from each other as is possible in the Indian subcontinent, and that represent extremely diverse cultural regions. Expecting an Indian from, say, New Delhi, to be able to identify a southern dish from Madras would be like expecting a Finn to give you his recipe for paella.

Of course, Americans are bound to be even more lost. We learn most of what we know about Indian food from restaurants, and 99% of the Indian restaurants on these shores serve the food of Punjab and know nothing of most of these dishes.

There is a method to the maddening variety. Many snacks are eccentrically enlivened with unusual masalas, individual spice mixtures that give the dishes distinct personalities. And many of the sweets have exotic flavorings such as tamarind, chikoo and sapota. If it all gets too disorienting, just remember that these preparations--vegetarian specialties that tempt you from the large glass case that takes up half the restaurant--are made from simple ingredients: lentils, garbanzo beans, rice, wheat flour, boiled milk and lots of ghee, or clarified butter.

The restaurant doesn’t offer a lot of atmosphere. It’s just another rather drab storefront as seen from the street, but the myriad snacks and sweetmeats provide all the color you could hope for. It’s run by Karim and Kusam Sood, a Punjabi couple who recently emigrated here--from Finland, of all places.

Dry snacks, native to Gujarat, sit in stainless steel tubs. They’re noodle and lentil mixtures with names such as sev, dal moth, hot mix, papri gathia and kaju masala.

Sev are tiny crisped noodles made from lentil flour, with an addictive, slightly oily sweetness. Dal moth is the same plus lentils and spices: black pepper, cumin and rock salt. Hot mix adds mung beans, chiles and ginger to this mixture, as well as nuggets made from garbanzo bean flour. Papri gathia taste like a sweeter version of sev. And kaju masala are roasted cashews, set on fire by a devilish-looking reddish-brown powder.

Now that you have whetted your appetite, it’s time to move on to the serious snacks, whipped up in the kitchen by a team of Punjabi and Gujarati chefs. Bhel puri hails from Bombay, a mixture of crisped rice and spiced vegetables sold in stalls on that city’s Chowpatty beach. Kachori chana is a variation of the samosa, that north Indian triangular dumpling usually stuffed with peas and potatoes. Kachori is rounder and oilier than a samosa and is stuffed with spicy brown lentils. It’s rich: Think of it as an entree doughnut as you smear it with a wonderful sauce of garbanzo beans in gravy (chana masala).

Moving south, where rice is king, we encounter a different sort of snack. Idli sambar is the most popular dish in south India, consisting of idli, a steamed rice cake shaped more or less like a flying saucer, and sambar, a rich lentil-tamarind broth.

There are almost 30 different desserts made here, so I’m not even going to attempt to describe more than a few. Suffice it to say that the Indian community makes the takeout business here quite brisk.

There are, for example, five different kinds of burfi, the milk fudge cut into quadrangle shapes and typically veiled with sheets of edible silver. You can choose pista (pistachio), kaju (cashew), almond, coconut or chocolate burfi. They’re all great.

And don’t miss the Bengali confections, considered by Indians with a sweet tooth to be the best on the subcontinent. Orange cham cham are little balls of boiled milk, sugar and shredded carrot, rolled in grated coconut to look like something in a dried fruit box. Rasgulla and rasmalai are cheeselike sweets sitting in thick, milky liquid. Whew! I’m bringing a Hindi instructor on my next visit.

Suggested dishes: idli sambar, $2.49; bhel puri, $1.99; kaju masala, $5.99; kachori chana, 99 cents. Sweets are $4.99 to $6.99 a pound.

Mother India, 7544 Topanga Canyon Blvd., Canoga Park, (818) 594-0217. Lunch and dinner 11:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday-Monday. No alcohol. Self-parking behind restaurant. Cash only. Dinner for two, $8-$20.