Jitu Patel's first India Oven, a west-of-the-Strip storefront, was one of the more successful of our local Indian restaurants until it was torn down, along with all the other properties along a quiet stretch of Sahara Avenue. It was a sad day for Indian food lovers when it disappeared, but now the restaurant rises again, in the same mini-mall that houses our only Puerto Rican restaurant, El Coqui.
This is a North Indian restaurant, as are most of our Indian restaurants, despite the Patel pedigree. That name happens to be one of the most common surnames in the world and is the leading surname in the West Indian province of Gujurat, a largely vegetarian area that was the ancestral province of Mahatma Gandhi, and where the food is nothing at all like the meat-rich cooking served here.
I asked Patel why he didn't offer any Gujurati dishes such as undhyoo, literally "upside down," a delicious eggplant casserole traditionally cooked in a fire pit. "I want to make money," was his reply. "If I served my native cuisine, I wouldn't do any business." Perhaps that's true, but I'd come.
We should count our blessings, anyway. India Oven does some things very well, and is my favorite place in the city for tandoori meats, or meats cooked in a clay oven at searing temperatures, so that they crust on the outside and remain juicy and moist within.
In India, when you eat these meats, they are often marinated in yogurt and coated with spice so a sumptuous coating forms. But most Vegas Indian restaurants serve a tame version of this dish. The vaunted tandoori chicken looks as if it has been rubbed with red dye in most of our establishments, and the other meats, too, lack punch and depth.
But India Oven does an astonishing barra kabab, rack of lamb cut into individual chops; and the fish tikka, meltingly tender cubes of sea bass blackened from their foray into the charcoal-fueled cylindrical oven, are delicious enough to make a grown man cry. Shrimp and chicken fare less well here but still manage to be a cut above any other in the city.
The natural companions to these meats are Indian breads, and India Oven has a variety worth ordering. Any with the word naan in them are also cooked in the tandoori oven, hunks of dough slapped onto the oven's sides that quickly morph into flatbreads.
Kabuli naan is interesting, stuffed with nuts, raisins and cherries, an homage to Kabul, the Afghani capital that once was a part of the vast Mughlai Empire that brought this cooking to India more than seven centuries ago. I'm also fond of keema naan, filled with minced lamb. Cheese naan and garlic naan also make worthy companions to the meats.
Appetizers are fine here, although I'm less enamored of the main dishes. Bengan aftab is an appetizer of sliced eggplant broiled with a piquant sauce, a must here, and one shouldn't miss aloo tikki, either, a crispy, spicy potato cake that is to India what the hash brown is to this country.
Chicken wings are delicious, cooked in the tandoor, and I'll give the meat samosas—deep fried, pyramidal pastries filled with ground lamb, that can be overly oily—just a pass. As an aside, papadum, crisp crackers made from ground lentil flour, can be habit-forming.
I was disappointed with my lamb biryani, a basmati rice dish laced with meat. The meat is clearly added at the end, not cooked with the rice. Yellow tadka daal could have been a touch less runny, while aloo gobi masala, cauliflower and potatoes cooked with tomatoes, onions and spices, was just about perfect.
If you've been to other North Indian restaurants, there isn't anything terribly unusual or distinctive about this place. It's a simple room decorated with Indian crafts, and I take it as a good sign that a large percentage of the customers here are of Indian origin, which is a testament to the authenticity of the cooking.
One of the best ways to get acquainted with this lively cuisine is to come for the lunch buffet, a bountiful affair consisting of more than 16 items that change daily. There is always raita, a tangy mixture of cucumber and yogurt, various chutneys and a large salad bar, as well, so the lunch here is a great bargain at $8.95.
Wash this food down with Indian beer like Taj Mahal, or try a lassi, a homemade drink made with yogurt and sometimes fruits like mango, which is indigenous to India. It's also a good idea to try the ras malai, sweet cheese balls in a rich cream sauce, or kheer, a grainy rice pudding, when they are available. Welcome back, Jitu.