Address: 181, Rakovski St., Sofia
Tel: 987 36 32
Cuisine: Indian
Price category: Medium

Dining at an Indian restaurant should be a sensuous experience.

Leave aside for other occasions the finesse of nouvelle cuisine, or the delicate freshness and piquancy of sushi. Indian food should leave one sated, and perhaps sweating. Long ago, in a succession of such restaurants, I learnt the trick of ordering a glass of milk, rather than water, to soothe a sizzling metabolism.

Taj Mahal plays in the milder leagues, and perhaps this should be welcomed if you are considering inviting to dinner those of less fiery preferences.

The venue is indeed well worth recommending for an intimate dinner with friends. The music, authentically Indian, is at just the right volume not to be intrusive, the tables attractively set and clean, the decor tasteful, restrained from descending into curio shop-kitsch.

It appears Taj Mahal has earned support from the foreigner community in Sofia, given that reservations are advisable, and that, when we dined there this week, two of the adjoining tables were taken by Americans.

The staff, liveried in braided uniforms which perhaps were some sort of nod to the Raj (and why not in saris, we wondered), were quite accustomed to speaking English to customers.

The menu, in Bulgarian and English, opens by offering four Bulgarian salads and a range of Indian salads, all in the three leva range.

The soups, each costing 1.99 leva, are cream of chicken, cream of mushroom, and a vegetable soup. Not very Indian-themed, and included probably only for those who insist on including soup in a meal.

It is, however, in the main courses that an Indian restaurant faces its test, and Taj Mahal acquits itself well with a comprehensive list of all the familiar standards.

The tandoori dishes include, among others, a tandoori chicken, chicken tikka, chicken tikka masala, and there is a separate category for chicken dishes, including a curry, chicken masala, chicken jalfrezi, boneless butter chicken, and chicken korma.

The seafood dishes were hardly spared a glance, given that this is Sofia and few would take seafood seriously in the city, except perhaps at some specialty restaurants, and the lamb dishes included rogan josh, korma and masala. All main courses are in the less than 10 leva range.

We chose the mushroom masala, of mushrooms, tomato sauce, peppers, onions and spices (3.99 leva), the dhall yellow, of lentils, peppers, tomato, onions, cream, butter and spices (3.99 leva), and, to test the performance of Taj Mahal against many lamb rogan joshes that have gone before in many other restaurants, this restaurant's version, priced at 7.69 leva. To accompany, garlic nan (1.19 leva) and tandoori roti (79 stotinki) were ordered.

The lamb was tender as it should be, of good quality - again, no mean feat given the challenge of finding good lamb in this city - and the portion of a size adequate to be shared between two people. Its spiciness was subtle and appetising.

It shared the shortcoming of the dhall yellow, that the texture of the sauce was a shade too liquid for our tastes. In taste, the dhall yellow itself was a fine accomplishment, and inspired the ordering of a second round of nan bread to finish it off. The mushroom masala was cooked to a perfect consistency, with an appropriate blend of flavours and spices, while preserving just enough firmness in the individual ingredients as testimony to the fact they had not been overcooked.

As to the sensuality of the eating experience, no glass of milk was called for. Western palates are unlikely to be uncomfortably assaulted, even if they wish to be. Clearly, Taj Mahal gears its cooking to those who wish to savour spiciness, without the masochism which has kept so many equivalent restaurants in London so busy for so many years.

Not uncharacteristically for an Indian restaurant, the dessert menu is short, just fruit salad, ice cream, and Phirni (a dairy-saffron dish). After the main meal, which left us satisfied rather than bloated, there was in any case too little room to feel the need for a dessert to round off the meal.

With a bottle Lovico Gamza, the bill came to just less than 30 leva.