Natraj II: Indian Food Sequel That in No Way Resembles the Original

Hit restaurants are like hit movies in the sense that the sequel rarely lives up to expectation. They differ in that movie marketing geniuses often try to fool you with some kind of novel spinoff, but second restaurant locations basically aim to be exact replicas.

Visit Natraj in Laguna Beach, however, and you can throw away the equation altogether. Natraj is owned and operated by the people who brought you the restaurant of the same name in Mission Viejo--a high class Punjabi-style cafe that could pass for a whitewashed maharajah’s palace--but it doesn’t remind you in any way, shape or form of that restaurant.

This new Natraj may be the smallest and most modestly appointed of all Indian restaurants in Orange County. It’s a Coast Highway cracker box with beige walls and white clothed tables, and despite a few Indian paintings, you just know this place would make an ideal Western-style gallery. (If the canned music suddenly switched from Indian pop to Michael Bolton, you’d probably be asking your waiter to exchange your tandoori chicken for a glass of champagne and a price list.)

Because of this pint-sized dining area, Natraj always feels crowded, even when it isn’t. Waiters literally have to squeeze their way between tables, and there’s a good chance you’ll be striking up a conversation with a neighbor before the evening is over. I did, if only to apologize for accidentally elbowing her as I reached for the mango pickle.

But the moment that food starts coming out of the tiny kitchen, you realize that this place has a big, big heart. Behind the range is 24-year-old Wunderkind Ashok Kunver, a native of Biratnagar, Nepal. Kunver has obviously been trained in the classic north Indian style, but his food is milder and less oily than you’d expect from a north Indian restaurant. Perhaps his style is a concession to the calorie-conscious Laguna Beach market, or perhaps he is just being true to his roots (cooking oil is costly in Nepal). Whatever he’s doing, I like it.

Consider aloo chat and pankhrian kabab, two appetizers that are perfect foils for the turmeric-rich carrot chutney and hot breads here. (All meals start with little glass vials of tamarind and carrot chutneys. It’s the carrot model, sweet pungent spears that go crunch, that becomes addictive.)

Aloo chat consists of cold spiced potatoes mixed with fresh peas, rock salt, cumin, ginger and garlic--sort of an exotic potato salad. Ginger and garlic also get full reign in pankhrian kabab , chicken wings cooked in the restaurant’s clay tandoor oven. Indians--unlike, for instance, the Chinese--do not prize the chicken wing for its tender charms, and so pankhrian kabab is a rare, but serendipitous, encounter in this style of restaurant.

Fans of tandoori dishes will do equally well with any of the oven-broiled meats. Ginger kabab (tangri kabab) is a plateful of spice-encrusted drumsticks. Fish tikka is notable for the enlightened use of swordfish (most of our Indian restaurants use frozen mahi-mahi), cut into large, melt-in-the-mouth cubes and redolent of tandoori spices.

There is a mild version of seekh kabab, the ruddy, cigar-shaped cylinders of spiced, ground lamb, and oversized chunks of yogurt-marinated chicken and lamb which answer to the name tikka. But perhaps the best of this lot is shrimp tandoori, where giant spot prawns marinated in spiced garlic before cooking get served with a delicate mint sauce. Wrap them up in paratha, the unleavened whole-wheat tortillas that come up steaming from the oven, and you’ve got a sort of fish taco that gives Taco Loco down the street a run for the roses.

If you aren’t carried off completely by this good tandoori stuff, a full Punjabi menu awaits (both meat and vegetarian). The best vegetable dish isn’t actually on the menu, but the restaurant practically always has it on hand. I refer to bhindi masala, crisply sauteed pieces of okra in a lively, almost hot spice mixture. Many people object to okra because of the so-called slimy texture, but not to worry--this is one of the snappiest okra dishes anywhere, a dry-fried version tasting primarily of cumin and red pepper.

If you like your food hot, Kunver will oblige, provided you specify beforehand. The hottest dishes at Natraj are probably the vindaloos, stews from southwestern India traditionally made with vinegar, potatoes, heaps of chilies and one type of meat. Here you have a choice of chicken, lamb or shrimp.

Karahi lamb can’t compete. It’s actually a Punjabi specialty dish named for karahi, the cast-iron Indian wok in which meat is cooked with garlic, ginger and tomato. Ideally, the meat comes out with a frizzled, crusty appeal, but here it’s a watery stew. The restaurant, it seems, doesn’t have a real karahi to work with.

A few other imperfections need to be mentioned. Once seated, you are served a complimentary basket of stale pappadam --these deep-fried lentil flour wafers are so wonderful when freshly made, I wonder why they serve them at all in this condition.

I’m also daunted by the fact that there is no plain rice on this menu. It’s clear that there is more money to be made from biryanis, pilaus and the like, but some people are bound to find these dishes too rich to serve as accompaniments.

But let’s not get too hung up on convention, or this place will turn into an an art gallery like the rest of the storefronts around here. Waiter! We need some more pankhrian kabab over here right now!

Natraj is moderately priced. Appetizers are $2.95 to $5.95. Tandoori specialties are $6.95 to $10.95. Entrees are $5.95 to $13.95.

* NATRAJ

* 998-B South Coast Highway, Laguna Beach.

* (714) 497-9197.

* Lunch daily, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; dinner Sunday through Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday till 10:30 p.m.

* All major credit cards accepted.