Transcending the Ordinary

In northern India, little roadside food stalls called dhabas are a beloved institution. The word “dhaba” has become synonymous with good, hearty Indian home-style cooking. By definition, a dhaba is a modest place--more or less the Indian equivalent of a truck stop--but, by one of India’s great culinary ironies, a good dhaba almost always serves tastier food than far grander restaurants.

That can be the case here in the Southland as well. Take Ambala Dhaba, named for a city in Hariana, the northern Indian province between Delhi and the agriculturally rich Punjab.

This unpretentious restaurant is in the corner of a mini-mall in Artesia, near a number of Indian sari shops and goldsmiths--and a variety of lavishly decorated restaurants. It’s far from fancy, but no matter how many fine Indian restaurants there are here in Little India (and that’s quite a few), there’s none where I’d rather eat.

The specialty at Ambala Dhaba is goat (bakra), which the chefs stew in a fiery red sauce. But this is also the place to come for Ludhiana chicken, the only chicken dish I’ve ever had in the Southland that actually reminds me of the glorious spice-crusted tandoori chickens you can get all over northern India.

As I’ve suggested, Ambala Dhaba is not one of your luxurious palaces of Moghlai cuisine, adorned with sculpture and brass work and marked by a decorous hush. It’s a genuine down-home Indian eatery, so come prepared to line up for a table along with the families who frequent this place.

And you should also come prepared for an assault-on-the-senses dining room, lined with mirrors and filled with loud Indian pop music. You eat off plastic-foam dinnerware, and when you’re seated, a waiter will bring you a plastic pitcher of ice water with the appropriate number of foam cups.

Believe me, you’ll need all the ice water you can get, because chefs Gurmail Singh Dale and Lakhbin Singh don’t pull any punches with their cooking. The food is not always searingly hot, but it’s always heavily spiced. Incidentally, the spice mixtures they use vary substantially from dish to dish, a feature of good Indian cooking all too rare in our Indian restaurants.

Bakra curry comes with a choice of hot naan bread or Basmati rice pilaf, plus a mound of shredded onions and a dish of turmeric-spiked pickled carrots. I’d choose the fragrant, fluffy rice over the bread, the better to absorb the rich sauce with. The dish is made with excellent goat, farm-raised in Chino. The individual pieces are stewed on the bone in a tomato-and-onion sauce dosed with red pepper, coriander, cumin and turmeric. It’s a transcendent dish.

I’m equally enthusiastic about Ludhiana chicken, which gets its name from a town in the Punjab. This is half a chicken (cut in pieces) that has spent a good 15 minutes in the tandoor oven. If it were the conventional, dark-red tandoori chicken, a quarter of an hour would be an eternity--the bird would certainly burn. But this chicken, which is marinated in yogurt laced with fenugreek, anise and red and black pepper, ends up a light golden color. The reason: It’s cooked on skewers well above the bottom of the oven. Yes, heat rises, but the bottom is actually the hottest part of a tandoor.

The vegetarian dishes are also quite good. I’ve had deliciously rich, stewed chickpeas (channa masala), which taste best scooped up in the hot, deep-fried bread puffs called poori. A thick red lentil dish (urad dal) is served with the whole-wheat flat bread paratha. Another dependable dish is simply called Ambala vegetables. It’s a plate of diced Indian cheese, large pieces of cauliflower, sliced tomatoes and sweet peppers, all charred to a turn in the tandoor.

After the main dishes, you can cool your palate with Ambala Dhaba’s other specialty, kulfi. The restaurant specializes in this rich ice cream made from boiled-down milk, and the flavors it features aren’t likely to pop up at your local Baskin-Robbins any time soon: almond saffron, pista (pistachio) saffron, mango, litchi and cashew raisin. Not to mention a tutti-frutti that tastes like a cross between mango and strawberry.

These are simply delightful kulfis, dense with nuts and redolent of tropical fruit flavors. I actually had my tutti-frutti on a stick, to go. I figure, if I’m going to eat Indian folk food, I might as well enjoy my own folk traditions as well.

BE THERE

Ambala Dhaba, 18413 Pioneer Blvd., Artesia. (562) 402-7990. Open 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Parking in lot. No alcohol. Takeout. MasterCard and Visa. Dinner for two, $11 to $18.

What to Get: goat curry, Ludhiana chicken, Ambala vegetables, channa masala, urad dal.