Flavorful Climate

Alas for Akbar. It was the great Marina del Rey Indian restaurant in the ‘80s, a font of rich, fragrant dishes served in a sumptuous environment (though for some perverse reason it had knobby Biedermeier chairs you could never get comfortable in).

Then it disappeared. But about five months ago, a new Akbar opened in a much smaller location up the street. Its decor is minimalist by Indian restaurant standards: five small prints, a couple of little brass Shiva medallions. It even has a lunch counter. It looks kind of like a sushi joint, in fact, except for the three guys behind the counter slaving over tandoor ovens.

The chef is Avinash Kapoor, who used to cook at the old Akbar. He’s continuing the Akbar tradition, though he seems to favor dishes with less sauce and more distinctive flavors. You see a few familiar Indian standards such as vindaloo and lamb saag here, but a chicken appetizer flavored with sesame and mace--now, that’s just not ordinary.

Every appetizer and entree gets a ranking of 1 to 5 on the “chilimeter,” but 5 is nowhere near the habanero level (they’ll make it hotter if you want). Only two items are 5s, one being the best appetizer, spicy chicken wings; call them tandoori buffalo wings, with the requisite whiff of cardamom.

Aloo aam tikka is a fine version of that little-regarded worldwide dish fried mashed potato patties, with a sweet orange sauce. Akbar also makes terrific samosas, big pyramids of aromatic browned crust stuffed with spiced peas and mashed potatoes. The papri chat is a tasty if somewhat crude-looking version of this snack: flat bread chips topped with mashed potatoes, tart cilantro chutney and a bit of yogurt. The shrimp pakoras are basically a crunchy vehicle for the table chutneys.

Often there’s a surprising special: kashkebadamjan, a curious Indian interpretation of the Persian kashk-o-bademjan. The original is a dip of fried eggplant mixed with garlic and whey, but this is lightly fried eggplant slices in an elusively spiced cream sauce.

The besetting sin of Moghul cooking is a rich, nondescript quality. Some of Akbar’s entrees suffer from this; I’m thinking of the chicken bhartha, in a spicy tomato sauce that makes it hard to tell chicken from eggplant. And of pepper lamb--take away a couple of serrano peppers and it’s just the standard Moghul braised lamb with cream and saffron. Chicken chutneywala gets nothing but an insipid sweetish flavor from mint chutney.

But most of the entrees are very impressive. The tandoor dishes are all perfectly cooked, notably the sea bass, though it would be easy to overcook fish in a tandoor. Coco lamb is a rich and dreamlike dish of lamb braised in coconut milk and perfumed with fennel. Lamb khada masala is just about the exact opposite. It’s a broodingly flavored curry made with whole spices fried dark brown, giving them an aroma something like barbecue sauce.

Akbari lamb (named after the Emperor Akbar) shows how to do this Moghul thing right. The rich sauce of pureed browned onions and cashews, scented with saffron, is the definition of luxury. To emphasize the royal quality of the dish, it’s topped with a wisp of edible silver foil. Chicken is also available in this sauce.

Needless to say, there are good tandoori breads, even a chef’s selection bread platter. You can get the usual sides: tomato and cucumber salad, yogurt drinks, pappadum wafers (very peppery) and a particularly good raita with potatoes as well as cucumbers in the tangy yogurt sauce.

Entrees can be ordered as dinners, which include curried vegetables, lentils, rice and bread, but I’d order one of the vegetarian entrees instead and split it as a vegetable course. Say, Akbar’s unusual gobi aloo: big chunks of potato with spicy, garlicky crumbles of steamed cauliflower.

The desserts, which all get the silver foil treatment, include kulfi (a sort of pistachio ice cream made of slightly caramelized condensed milk), gulab jamun (balls of heavily condensed milk soaked in honey syrup) and a tiny bit of rich rice pudding (kesari kheer) infused with saffron and studded with pistachios. The excellent house specialty is a cheesecake (graham crust and all) flavored with mangoes--and a disorienting whiff of pumpkin pie spices.

Glad to have you back, Akbar. Much more comfortable chairs this time, by the way.

BE THERE

Akbar Cuisine of India, 3115 Washington Blvd., Marina del Rey. (310) 574-0666; fax (310) 821-6686. Lunch 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Friday, dinner 5-11 p.m. daily. No alcohol. Street parking. Takeout; free delivery in area. American Express, MasterCard and Visa. Dinner for two, food only, $22-$46. What to Get: spicy chicken wings, aloo aam tikka, coco lamb, lamb khada masala, bread platter, kesari kheer, mango cheesecake.