Restaurant Review - East meets East (2)

Most of the city’s devotees to Indian food know just where to head when the craving for curry strikes: The area of Decatur where Lawrenceville Highway and DeKalb Industrial Way intersect is lush with options.

A restaurant named Bamboo Garden, then, seems like an intriguing new addition to the Indian-dominated neighborhood. I mean, Bamboo Garden sure sounds like a straight-ahead Chinese joint, right? The name tips you off in the same way as, say, an eatery called Jade Dragon or Seven Lotus Treasures does. You walk in expecting Kung Pao Chicken Central.

Ah, but there’s a catch here.

It’s not immediately evident when you enter Bamboo Garden’s upbeat, open space. A large relief of the Great Wall of China monopolizes one side of the room. Figurines of pudgy Buddhas line shelves on bright walls. (You know it’s time to find a new restaurant decor trend when even out-of-the-way ethnic restaurants sponge-paint their walls mustard and lime green.)

The smiling young host who seats us is Indian. The servers are Chinese. And alongside menu options like Szechwan chicken and wonton soup are dishes featuring paneer, the fresh Indian cheese. What kind of multicultural collision is this?

One that’s quite popular in India, actually. The nickname for this hybrid cuisine is Desi-Chinese, and it has evolved in India the same way that Chinese-American cuisine adopted to suburban tastes across our fair land. In America, our proclivity for sugar inspired fluorescent sweet-and-sour chicken. In India, Chinese cooking received an infusion of spice, dairy products and lamb offerings. When in Rome ...

The menu is extensive. While the few classic Chinese restaurant dishes I tried here were all up to par (a tangy beef in hot garlic sauce was particularly notable), it’s the lesser-known treasures that are really worth your attention. They’re easy to spot: Lat Mai paneer isn’t something you see listed next to vegetable spring rolls every day. These fiery cubes of fried, toothsome cheese have the addictive quality of popcorn. I envision movie-goers in India buying bags of these babies to pop in their mouths while they gaze up at Bollywood flicks.

Many of the appetizers bring on similar heat. Small, crunchy corn cakes, slick with oil, get revved up with scallions, green pepper and dry red chilis. The fervor of the chili is tempered by a sharp, cooling note of rice wine. “Drums of heaven” receive the same treatment with equal success: The plate of crisp-tender chicken wings is soon a graveyard for gnawed-on bones.

Spicy vegetable triangles turn out to be an extended remix of scallion pancakes. A nearly pureed dice of vegetables is sandwiched between fried dough. They are a bit bland on their own. I long for some of the ginger-soy sauce that traditionally accompanies them for dipping.

Not that the menu lacks for ginger. Fans of nearby Udipi Cafe’s Gobi Manchurian will recognize the same gingery, almost mushroomy overtures in Bamboo Garden’s Lachew cauliflower. And speaking of which, vegetable coins — seasoned chopped veggies bound by a little flour and fried into tight discs — are served here in a brown “Manchurian” sauce. Muddy as the sauce may be, there’s a distinct note of ginger that rings clear like the whistling of the trains that rattle through town every morning.

Braised lamb with choy sum (Chinese greens) illustrates the confluence of culinary cultures at its best. The combination of lamb and greens is reminiscent of an Indian saag, but the Chinese stir-fry technique leaves these ingredients with a vibrant immediacy that its long-simmered Indian counterpart loses.

Shredded crispy lamb Peking style, with its nearly cloying sauce that hints of Hoisin, doesn’t inspire a similar reaction. Still, it’s a refreshing twist to sample familiar Chinese preparations where lamb, a popular meat in India but not China, is substituted for pork (which isn’t served at Bamboo Garden) or beef.

Seafood selections don’t bring too many cross-cultural surprises, though they don’t disappoint either. Chunks of sweet lobster are tossed in a lightly spicy “canchow” sauce with a dice of carrot, celery and green peppers. Arranged alongside an empty lobster shell, it strives for unnecessary gourmet appeal: The integrity of the dish speaks for itself.

Dessert time brings fun, unusual tastes. Date pancake is a sweet variation on the spicy vegetable triangles, with smooth date paste spread between the crispy wedges of dough. It’s good on its own, but even better when eaten between bites of kulfi ice cream flavored with pistachio and scented with rose water. Our motherly server enthusiastically endorsed darsaan, which turned out to be fried wonton strips coated in honey. My friend’s child loved it. I’ll stick with the date pancake.

As I stroll out the door, waving goodbye to the Indian host incessantly chatting on his cell phone, I spy a bowl of candy-coated fennel on a counter. Hey, isn’t that what they offer in Indian restaurants? I take one last glance around. Indian? Chinese? Chinese? Indian? It’s hard to get used to the idea that it’s an intrinsic blend of both. But it is. Bamboo Garden is yet another addition to the multifaceted community of ethnic restaurants that makes the dining scene in Atlanta such a pleasure to explore.