Indian choices on the rise

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Spice & Curry is a taste adventure

At first glance, there's little to distinguish the dining room at Spice & Curry from those of the area's other two dozen Indian restaurants. It's pretty much the standard setting, from the stock watercolors on the front wall to the buffet steam table (which stands empty in the evenings) at the back of the room.

Then you spot it, staring at you from a corner of the room: a larger-than-life white tiger, painted on black velvet. It's an eye-catching decor highlight, certainly. But more than that, the tiger is the first hint that Spice & Curry, which opened in May, is not your garden variety Indian restaurant. It aims to lead you on a culinary adventure deep into the unexplored territory of Indian regional cuisines, deeper than you've likely ever been before.

In the Triangle, which is already blessed with an exceptional number and variety of Indian eateries, that's saying a lot. But, while most of those restaurants specialize in one or two regional cuisines, Spice & Curry's menu embraces everything from Northern

Small plates in place

In more than one sense, "less is more" is the guiding philosophy at Six Plates Wine Bar (2812-104 Erwin Road; 321-0203; www.sixplateswinebar.com ), which opened last Friday in Durham's Erwin Terrace. As the restaurant's name implies, the menu consists of a nightly changing offering of just six small plates.

Owner Matthew Beason is quick to point out, however, that these small plates "aren't your traditional tapas with just one item. They're fully realized presentations, like an entree with sides, only smaller." Beason, a former co-owner of Rue Cler and Pop's, lured chef Ted Domville away from Chive, a small plates restaurant in California, to help transform his idea into reality. On opening night, Domville responded with an inventive offering that included lobster spring roll with wakame salad and a spicy persimmon purée; cinnamon-crusted scallop with wild boar prosciutto, local arugula and pumpkin risotto; and local chicken pot pie with truffle-dusted chanterelle mushrooms.

The wine list offers 100

Kashmir's best? Skip the buffet

I should have known better - did know better, in fact. I've eaten at enough restaurant buffets to know that you're almost always better off ordering from the menu. The price you pay for all that variety is inevitably food that, even under the best of circumstances, isn't as fresh as the same food prepared to order.

But the waiter at Kashmir spoke glowingly of the "super buffet" offered only on Friday and Saturday nights. The spread was much larger than the weekday lunch buffet, he said, with dozens of dishes from both Northern and Southern India. There was even a chaat station where you could assemble your own Indian-style snacks. I was lucky, he said, that my first visit to Kashmir happened to be on a Friday night.

What the heck, I thought. It was just after 5 p.m., and the restaurant had just opened for dinner. How much fresher could the buffet be?

A taste of Nepal in Durham

Durbar 84 takes its name from the Nepalese word for "palace" and the number of dishes that constitute a proper feast in that country. That's a romantic name for the area's first Nepalese restaurant, and suitably evocative of a people famous for their hospitality. But I must admit that before last March, when Shyam Aryal and Hari Sharma opened Durbar 84 in Research Triangle Park, I couldn't have named a single one of those 84 dishes.

I suspect I'm not alone. According to Aryal, he and his partner are two of only 500 or so Nepalese immigrants in North Carolina, and Durbar 84 is the state's first restaurant specializing in that country's cuisine. Clearly, the partners face a marketing challenge. They'll have to do more than just serve good food in a welcoming atmosphere. They'll have to educate people too.

The partners have gotten off to a good start with the first two parts of that formula. As a host, the affable Aryal lives up to his homeland's reputation for hospitality. And in the kitchen, Sharma for

Ethnic cuisine choices expand

Chapel Hill is the new home of the NCAA men's basketball champions, and of course Raleigh can always lay claim to being the state capital. Meanwhile, Durham is not about to give up its reputation as the Triangle's most vibrant and varied ethnic dining scene without a fight.

With the recent opening of Green Leaf (4215 University Drive; 493-0033; www.greenleaf indiancuisine.com ), the Bull City is even challenging Cary's primacy as the local hub of Indian cuisine. Billal Hossein, a native of Bangladesh, opened the restaurant's doors late last month in Parkway Plaza, in the space that was formerly occupied by Taste of India (and briefly, by Madras Palace). Other than nominal cuisine, Green Leaf has little in common with its predecessors.

The menu may well be the area's most extensive, and is certainly the most varied. The offering spans the subcontinent, from the dosa and uttapam of the South to the curries and tandoori dishes of the North. There's a broad selection of familiar vegetarian and non-vegetarian