RESTAURANT REVIEW : The Road to India by Way of Pakistan and Bangladesh

One nice thing about eating Asian. You almost never get hassled for bringing a kid.

When my friends couldn’t find a baby-sitter for their 5-year-old, we decided to try Royal India, the new tenant in the Van Nuys location formerly occupied by San Remo (which is moving down the street to a bigger location). The waiters spent the better part of the evening trying to keep the boy out from under other people’s tables, and no one on the staff showed even the slightest impatience.

Royal India doesn’t feel like a restaurant that ought to be called Royal India. It’s a bright oblong of glass-topped tables with fake flowers on them, illuminated largely by a row of Tiffany lamps that look as if they were bought at the Rose Bowl Flea Market. The waiters wear somber black tuxedos.

Before I eat in a new Indian restaurant, I call to ask the type of Indian food I can expect, and nine times out of 10 I get the same response: Moghlai, Punjabi, North Indian. This time, the response was a bit different. “This is a Pakistani-Bangladeshi restaurant, sir,” explained a lilting voice, and I got a little excited. One gets bored with the same old Moghlai/Punjabi menu.

But when we arrived at the restaurant and began reading the menu, it looked like a virtual clone of the one you see at any other local Indian restaurant, save a couple of beef dishes (Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are Muslims, not Hindus, and eat beef) and one dessert, ras malai , the soft little cheese balls served in sweetened milk that are a Bangladeshi specialty. I immediately asked the waiter to save us some. He informed me, with an infuriatingly cheerful shrug, that they were out.

Nevertheless, the food here can be very tasty. It turns out that though the management is Bangladeshi, the chef is from Bombay, of all places. Bombay is India’s most cosmopolitan city, but it is also a city that virtually belongs to the south. That means hotter, lighter cooking, with surprise ingredients such as pomfret fish and coconut making occasional appearances, things you’d never taste in a North Indian restaurant.

You can taste almost all the appetizers in a generous combination plate. The best thing on it is probably shish kebab, minced lamb roasted on skewers in the tandoori oven, but the lamb and chicken tikka , where the tandoor-cooked meats are cut into cubes, are right up there. That’s because these lean, mean meats are cooked without salt, allowing the natural juices to remain inside.

I find the onion bhaji and samosa on this plate disappointing. You could call onion bhaji the Indian version of Tony Roma’s onion loaf, a squiggly, golden brown maze of onions deep fried in a lentil batter. Samosa is a pastry triangle stuffed with a pea and potato “masala,” and it won’t make you think of Mississippi. Both of them taste fine but suffer from having been fried at a lower than ideal temperature. The result is an unnecessary loss in crispness.

The main menu is imposingly large, with many familiar items. Pomfret, called shahi fish on this menu, is one that may not be. It’s a bony, oily fish that fries up crisp and is a favorite in Bangladesh (and neighboring Bengal State, India) where mustard oil gives it an indescribable tang. Royal India’s pomfret, however, is ever so tame. It’s roasted in the tandoor and served in a mildly spicy tomato sauce. Watch out for those little bones, too.

Beef vindaloo is a special treat from Goa, a former colony of Portugal just south of Bombay. It’s a very hot, vinegar-based curry made with beef and potatoes--call it the world’s spiciest beef stew. This one is delicious.

I’d also like to put in a word for the lamb korma , because it is such a mix of northern and southern sensibilities. Korma is basically meat cut up and cooked in a heavy sauce, usually cream-based and enriched with nuts. This model is the color of cafe au lait and super-thick from the addition of ground almonds--and coconut. It’s pure indulgence.

The restaurant has a couple of showpiece dishes, but don’t bother. Kashmiri chicken, $20.95 for two, sounds better than it delivers. It’s a whole marinated chicken, stuffed with minced lamb and herbs and cooked in a special sauce, but it is apt to be bland, and the waiters decimate it with carving knives before your very eyes. Royal India shahi lamb is an entire leg, ($69.95--24 hours notice) served with all the trimmings. But after watching these guys play doctor with the bird, I wouldn’t chance it.

I don’t mean to complain about the staff, though. They were all very pleasant and really wonderful to our 5-year-old. Even when he turned up his nose at all their best dishes in favor of a plastic tub of Mom’s macaroni and cheese.

Suggested dishes: chicken tikka , $2.95; shish kebab, $2.95; beef vindaloo, $6.95, lamb korma , $7.95.

Royal India, 14038 1/2 Victory Blvd., Van Nuys, (818) 780-0477. Lunch 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily, dinner 5 to 11 p.m. daily. Parking lot. Full bar. American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, $20 to $40.