Bollywood Grill

4062609

We love the look of Bollywood Grill — the theater-esque red-velvet curtains on the windows, the filmy draperies between booths, the black linen cloths and napkins, the faux-starlit ceiling and especially the continuous loop of Bollywood classics, which were unendingly entertaining, on the big plasma screen. The owners have taken an old ’50s-style diner and done their best to camouflage its stainless-steel origins, and they’ve done pretty well.

We also love that Bollywood Grill has on its menu the southern Indian specialties we don’t find much in Las Vegas. Food from that part of the country is characterized by an abundance of vegetables and grains, and so it was with our Chiranjeevi Special Combo ($11.99), the centerpiece of which was a moong masala dosa, a large, thin and crisp-edged pancake made with ground split beans and rice. Like the crepe to which it’s kin, the dosa can be filled with just about anything, and in this case it was a saucy mixture of seasoned sauteed onions and chilies. Asked how hot we wanted it, we chose medium on the low side, and it turned out to be very mild indeed.

The combo included two other southern Indian specialties. The idli, a steamed, unleavened bunlike cake made from a batter of ground lentils and rice, was as austere as it sounds, with the vada, a fried cake more akin to a doughnut, somewhat of the sexier sister. To sauce things up further, there was a bowl of sambar, a stewlike preparation based on dal, which is made with — guess what? — lentils and dried beans, and which went a long way toward enlivening the idli and also was quite nice on the dry edges of the dosa once we had finished all of the filling. There also was some coconut chutney, which was OK, but far less coconutty than others we’ve had.

Southern Indian food is less popular with Americans than northern Indian food because … well, you know how vegetarianism has caught on in this country, and especially in this city — not. Both of us are die-hard carnivores, yet at Bollywood Grill it was the Dosa & Co. that we found most successful.

For example: Another combo plate, Shahrukh’s mixed grill ($17.99), brought together much of the best of Indian cuisine of the nonvegetarian kind. There was tandoori chicken, chicken tikka, seek kababs and a prawn — all things of which we are quite fond. The problem? To an item, they were too dry. The tandoori chicken was appropriately spicy, the chicken tikka and seek kababs imbued with an ethereal mix of spices, but they’d all simply been cooked too long. The best part about this entree was that the components were served atop sliced onions, all of it delivered on a sizzle platter, which lightly grilled the onions and provided a nice accent.

Vegetable samosas ($3.99) were similarly dry. They’re not exactly supposed to be moist — the shell, after all, needs to be crisp, and the typical potato-and-pea filling must not swamp things — but these were more dry than most we’ve had over the years. Tamarind and coriander sauces helped, but not enough.

We did have better luck with the eggplant pakoras ($4.99), simply eggplant slices dipped into the lentil-based batter and fried — which were moist and very flavorful.

In the final analysis, we liked Bollywood Grill a lot, on almost all levels, but especially for the atmosphere and the southern Indian specialties. But we do wish they’d ease up on the cooking temps a little.

Las Vegas Review-Journal reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at 383-0474 or e-mail her at hrinella@ reviewjournal.com.