RESTAURANT REVIEW : VALLEY WEEKEND : Indian Menu Benefits From Bengali Flavors : At the new Surma Gate, coconut, tamarind and even mustard oil enhance a variety of familiar dishes.

A well-traveled cook I know jokes about Indian restaurants in this country. “It’s as if there is just one menu that gets faxed around every time a restaurant opens.”

Now the San Fernando Valley has Surma Gate, which takes its name from a river in faraway Bangladesh. It doesn’t serve Bangladeshi cuisine, which is based on fish, lentils and mustard oil. In fact, Surma Gate’s menu offers the usual Indian restaurant list of breads and meat from a tandoor oven, the requisite stewed vegetable dishes and a spate of curries.

But everything is prepared with a Bengali accent. Coconut, tamarind and even mustard oil are apt to turn up in a familiar recipe. And more than being distinctive in style, this may be the freshest, cleanest-tasting Indian cuisine in town.

This is also a tastefully designed restaurant, even if not evocative of the Indian subcontinent. The interior is mostly cream and white, apart from appointments such as the sturdy, high-backed black lacquer chairs and a huge, languid watercolor. Surma Gate is also light and spacious, out of character for the usual Southern California Indian restaurant. The waiters wear color-splashed Bengali vests.

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A trio of chutneys--tamarind, mint and onion--offers no surprise, other than the fact that they seem to be unusually fresh. Then things begin to heat up. The humble samosa is transformed in this kitchen. In place of the normally tedious filling of mashed, spiced potato, these crisp pastry triangles come stuffed with garbanzos, cashews, peas, potatoes and minced onion, heady with a complex masala spice mixture.

Out of the tandoor there are fluffy breads such as keema naan, bread layered with a thin sheet of ground lamb. Peshawari naan is fragrant with sizzling coconut and flecks of fresh mint.

Surma Gate’s tandoori meats are juicy and encrusted with spice. Lamb tikka is perfectly browned shish kebab but the chunks of meat are on the tough side. The chicken tikka is tender and browned around the edges. You might also consider shrimp tandoori, plump prawns with a coat of reddish spice.

When ordering vegetables, this restaurant allows patrons to order all the classics as sides, for $3.95. This makes it possible for two people to taste four or five small dishes without guilt.

Bombay potatoes are steamed in a thick spice paste flavored with tamarind, garlic and ginger. Bhindibhaji, stewed okra in a mild sauce with tomatoes, is one of the best dishes on the menu.

The hearty channa masala is garbanzos in a baked spice mixture. Tarka dal is a monotonous lentil gravy that made me wonder why the kitchen doesn’t offer the sharp, mustard oil-based Bengali dal I once tasted in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

I asked the kitchen to make a fish curry with mustard oil, which was wonderful, though made with much less mustard oil than normally used in that part of the world.

Order chicken or lamb karhai, and a spicy mixture of meat, onions and peppers is brought out in a small iron wok, still giving off heat as it is being set down.

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Surma Gate’s kitchen is still tentative when it comes to spices. Vindaloo should be among the hottest curries an Indian restaurant serves. Not here.

I finally got them to make me a chicken dhansak that had some fire in it. Dhansak is a Parsi specialty generally eaten in Bombay. It consists of meats cooked with lentils and vegetables. Here the dish can be infuriatingly mild, unless you convince the staff you are for real.

Finish a meal here with a saffron-, almond- and cream-infused mango kulfi, a rich, sophisticated homemade ice cream.

One hopes the high quality will continue. More often than not, after a few months a new Indian restaurant becomes like all the others. Personally, I’d like to see Surma Gate doing more Bengali-style dishes, the exotic stuff.

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DETAILS

* WHAT: Surma Gate.

* WHERE: 14611 1/2 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks.

* WHEN: Open for lunch 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and dinner 5:30-10:30 p.m. daily.

* HOW MUCH: Dinner for two, $22-$35. Suggested dishes: samosa, $2.50; Peshawari naan, $2.95; bhindibhaji, $7.95 (a la carte)/$3.95 (side); fish curry, $9.95. Beer and wine only.

* FYI: Parking lot. American Express, MasterCard and Visa.

* CALL: (818) 788-9888.