Plasma screens around the room flicker with gyrating Bollywood musicals. In some booths, Internet access terminals are flashing. Sari-clad matrons sit next to midriff-bared Indian American teens. This is Annapurna, where the walls are painted with Indian folkloric scenes -- bordered by the image of a strip of 35-millimeter film.
"Your home away from home," reads a slogan on the menu. The "you" addresses the homesick desi (Indian paisano). Many desis, it turns out, toil nearby in Culver City's film-related production businesses. Owner Raj Gudapati aims to provide them their favorite vegetarian comfort foods -- cooked exactly as they might be back home in Mumbai or Bangalore.
Every dish at Annapurna has an assertive flavor personality of its own. Take the restaurant's aviyal and vegetable khorma. They may look similar, with their fresh coconut sauces and meticulously cut vegetables, but there's no mistaking the one, with its electric charge of dry-roasted chiles and tangy bursts of tamarind, for the other.
From north India comes a stunning lineup of wheat breads -- flat, layered, yeast-risen, griddled, tandoor-baked and fried. Batura is a fragile golden puff of fried bread the size of a basketball; tear off a thin swatch and use it for scooping up mouthfuls of garbanzo and onion dal. Less showy than batura, but its absolute rival in the flavor department, is the layered, almost pastry-like paratha bread that comes with a mild vegetable khorma in a creamy coconut sauce.
Pav bhaji, a classic Mumbai street food, is tiny soft buns onto which you spoon a tingly hot lentil-onion puree punctuated with sweet peas. (A word of warning: Don't order pav bhaji at the beginning of a meal. It's too easy to ruin your appetite on it.)
From the south comes an impressive variety of specialties made from grains and legumes, including 17 versions of the crepe called dosa, all with a nutty, elemental flavor that comes from lightly fermenting a rice and lentil batter. The paper dosa is so thin it's crunchy. The special dosa is rolled around caramelized onions and spiced paneer cheese. Another dosa is spread with a veneer of seasoned spinach.
I'm particularly impressed with Gudapati's lineup of the delectable savories contrived from ground rice and legumes. As many time as I've eaten these, I'm always amazed by the way a skilled chef magically transforms the same lowly ingredients into such distinctive textures and flavors. Steamed idlis are remarkably distinct from crisp paper dosas or floppy, pancake-like uthappams, not to mention the assorted fritters, stuffed pastries and risotto-like porridges. With their entourages of pickles, chutneys, soupy sauces and yogurt, these dishes are meals that make meat seem irrelevant.
