Michael Lucith International

The Food
The menu is prototypical Northern Indian dishes, tandoori chicken, lamb vindaloo, chicken koorma--you know the drill. Prices are standard, service is solicitous and the samosas are topnotch. As at most Peninsula Indian restaurants, there is an inexpensive lunch buffet, and at dinner you can mix it up with a vegetarian or meat-oriented thali (a combination platter of those cute stainless-steel bowls). Without a doubt the restaurant's finest offering is vanilla-scented rice pudding with fluffy bits of basmati rice suspended in a custard almost the thinness of creme anglaise. Fit for a palace.

The Scene
If they were aiming for "palatial," Tarvinder Girn and Mohinder Singh got rooked by their decorator. The place is little, made even smaller by a surfeit of fake greenery and Victorian wallpaper. Still, the cozy storefront restaurant on University Avenue in Palo Alto is a welcome addition to the city's dining scene.