Cheap Eats - Panahar provides

Bangladeshi-style Indian food hits the spot

For years, Atlantans struggled to find a great Indian restaurant with fair prices despite a thriving Indian community. Recently, though, the city has seen a surge in top-notch Indian eateries. Case in point: Panahar, which opened last year to little fanfare and continues to turn out great dishes in its out-of-the-way locale. Owner Mirza Chowdhury and his staff are all Bangladeshi, and Panahar’s menu mirrors that fact: The food is less oily, less spicy and less meat-oriented than standard Indian cuisine. Next door to an Ethiopian restaurant and across a parking lot from Planet Fitness, Panahar is warm and inviting, with mirrored walls and sarongs swathed over its booths.

Service: An Indian cuisine’s unusual vegetable and meat dishes often make neophytes nervous. But Chowdhury goes a long way to allay those fears. When he thought we’d ordered too many bread portions, he suggested we nix the extra plate of naan. At the end of the meal, Chowdhury gave us an incentive to come back: If we dine two more times, we receive a complimentary dinner for two; the offer is currently going until the end of April. He joked that if we made our way through the whole menu, he’d let us negotiate new varieties of dishes with the chef. Hey, that’s what home cooking is all about.

What we ate: Our British-accented host told us she liked the chicken tikka better here than in London. That’s a huge plug, so we tried the masala variety ($8.95). The orange, creamy yogurt marinade with herbs and spices was just right but wasn’t nearly as good as the shag poneer ($7.95). The dish is typically made of creamed spinach with cheese cubes. But Chowdhury adds white round potatoes to the mix, and the cheese was firm and held its texture well. The okra-do-piaza ($6.95) — okra sauteed with onions and herbs — is one of the best vegetable dishes on the menu. Beef is available and can replace most of the chicken, lamb or goat dishes. The beef karai ($8.95) — beef strips stir-fried with onions, tomatoes and green peppers — is probably the least impressive of all the items sampled. But it’s still a great bite.

Cheapest item: The lunch buffet is an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of tandoori chicken, four vegetable dishes and desserts for $6.55. If you’re looking for one of the best deals in town, you’ve found it.

Most expensive item: Try the tandoori shrimp for $12.95 or try the mixed tandoori platter for the same price; the latter includes shrimp, chicken and other specialties. ??