It's still a little confused, and the menu leaves diners to find their way as best they can, but it's a clear-cut victory for the cause of Indian food. The setting helps. Tamarind is stylishly decorated, with a cool ivory and white color scheme. I never managed to get one of the wrap-around banquettes, which are set into raised niches along the perimeter of the dining room, but I envied the diners who did. They seemed aloof and regal, like pukka sahibs atop an elephant.
Quality varies on the extensive dinner menu.
The highs are very high, the lows, like tough vegetable samosas, are correspondingly low. Others seem puzzling, like clunky slabs of seared tuna in a dull crust of black sesame seeds and cayenne. Some dishes are executed with great delicacy, like the Calcutta specialty known as raj kachori, a lightly spiced chickpea croquette with a paper-thin crisp skin. Others fall short, like sikandri raan, a small leg of lamb marinated in mint-ginger chutney and, in theory, cooked until crisp in the tandoor. In fact, the lamb emerges dry and almost tasteless, with no crispness in evidence.