Cox: Himalayan Restaurant worth a stop if you’re in Windsor

As you sit down at your table in Windsor’s Himalayan Restaurant, you may feel as though you are being watched.

That’s because you are. On top of the white tablecloth and beneath the large pane of glass that covers each table is a piece of paper with a big pair of sanpaku Buddha eyes. This icon stares out in the four directions from the sides of just about every Buddhist temple in Nepal, symbolizing the Buddha’s omniscience.

While the restaurant calls itself “a taste of India and Nepal,” the heart of chef and manager Bishnu Pandey is definitely in the highlands. Of course, Nepalese cooking is similar to the cuisine of northeast India, but there are some differences. In Nepal, very little cream is used, green vegetables are served chopped rather than pureed, rice is the usual starch rather than breads like naan and chapatti, and Nepalese cooks avoid the pinch of sugar that many Asian cooks use to enhance the flavor of savory dishes.

That said, there are plenty of nods to Indian cuisine at Himalayan Restaurant. The kitchen will spice up dishes to your preferred level of oral fire that, if you’re Indian, will be hotter than someone from Nepal might ordinarily choose.

For instance, the Bindi Do Pyaza ($11.99 ??½), one of the nightly specials, was a chopped combination of okra, red bell pepper, and onions served with rice and nicely spiced. It put a welcome glow in the mouth. On the other hand, another nightly special, the Himalayan Lamb and Mushroom Fry ($13.95 ???), lit a fire that didn’t die down until a spoonful of raita yogurt sauce cooled things off. The lamb in this dish was perfectly cooked, though, and very tender, and the dish also showed its Indian heritage in the creamy tamarind sauce in which the cubes of meat and chunks of button mushrooms lay.

And yes, there is naan - nine kinds, actually - plus roti, a whole-wheat bread baked in the tandoor oven and often used for sandwiches. An order of Plain Naan ($2.25 ??) seemed doughy and just a bit underdone. Rice accompanies most dishes and your choices are white or brown, although the Vegetable Himalayan Biryani ($11.99 ??) is made with white basmati rice.

The biryani was something of a disappointment simply because it was so low key - a little flavor of curry powder, not much spice, and not much help in the flavor department from the peas, broccoli florets, mushrooms, red bell peppers, and cashews that were studded throughout the rice.

The restaurant is on the western end of McClelland Street, the roadway with the bespoke row of shops that face the beautiful town green. Soft Himalayan flute music wafts through the dining room, and there is an outdoor patio. Service is efficient and gracious. A generous selection of bottled beers from India and Nepal will keep patrons well hydrated and relaxed. There is also a small wine list.

Dinner starts with a small cup of dal, lightly spiced lentil soup, offered gratis. Then came Chicken Pakora ($6.99 ???), little chicken fingers dipped in spices and cooked like fritters in the deep fryer. I suspect kids will love them, although for less adventurous kids there’s a children’s menu: noodle soup, buttered chicken, fried noodles, and such. The pakora come with three dips that the menu calls chutneys, but which seem more like sauces. They are tamarind, mint or cilantro, and mango. There’s also Mushroom Pakora ($5.99 ??) on the menu, but the slippery texture of the mushrooms isn’t as satisfying in a fritter as white-meat chicken.

Four kinds of Himalayan kabobs consist of meats or fish grilled in the clay oven and served with raita, aloo chana curry, and rice. The Chicken Kabob ($13.99 ??½) was a big portion of breast meat cut into large chunks, coated in red spices, and grilled. The meat was a bit dry, but mixing it with rice, raita, and curry and scooping it up with a torn piece of naan moistens it.

For dessert, there’s rice pudding and two house-made ice creams: mango and vanilla-coconut.

To sum up: A decent Himalayan restaurant for lunch or dinner when you’re enjoying a day in Windsor.

Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review for the Sonoma Living section. He can be reached at jeffcox@sonic.net.

Himalayan ?Restaurant

Where: 810 McClelland Drive, Windsor

When: Open daily for lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and for dinner from 5 to 9 p.m.

Reservations: Call 838-6746

Price range: Moderate, with entrees from $11.99 to $20.99

Website: www.himalayankabobandcurryhouse.com

Wine list: ?

Ambiance: ??

Service: ??½

Food: ??½

Overall: ??

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???? Extraordinary

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