Nizam of India - an Indian restaurant in West L.A.

I was introduced to Indian food for the first time in the 90s. I was about to make a trip to London, and while I was going with a tour group, I had a budget I needed to keep within, and I was told that fairly inexpensive Indian restaurants were easy to find in London. But I'd never had Indian food before and so wouldn't have a clue what to order or what I'd like. My boss at the time took me to a really nice Indian restaurant called Gaylord. He knew that they had a lunch buffet and thought that would be a good way for me to try a variety of different dishes. Two other people came along to lunch as well, and all three of them were telling me various things about Indian dishes. I discovered that I really enjoyed Indian food, so I was well armed with that knowledge. As it was, I don't think I ended up having any Indian food on my travels to England during that trip.

Later on, I was hanging out with a particular friend on a regular basis, and she had a little Indian place that she liked, so we'd go there for dinner on occasion. I mostly had tandoori chicken or some kind of curry, but those are fairly limiting dishes.

And then, I was driving around a couple years ago at lunch time and saw Nizam of India and decided to try it. Definitely a good choice. They offer a lunch buffet for $7.95. It's a good deal, and the food is very good. Lunch comes with two pieces of tandoori chicken, but I generally ask them to hold that now since I much prefer the chicken dishes offered in the buffet, and I wasn't even touching the tandoori chicken so it seemed a shame for it to go to waste. Also included is a good serving of nan (Indian bread of superfine flour cooked in the tandoor).

The buffet itself comes with a number of different choices. There's also some kind of soup. Sometimes, it's a tomato soup, with little bits of stuff and spices. It's really delicious. But my favorite though is Mulligatawny (a traditional soup made with lentils, spices and chicken stock, subtly flavored with delicate herbs). It just has so much flavor and is a very satisfying soup. Even when it's warm outside, it's usually nicely cool inside with the air conditioning, so the warm soup is very nice. On occasion, they will also have samosa (crisp patties stuffed with spiced potatoes and green peas). I've tried them, and I think they're ok, but I generally pass now because there are other things on the buffet I'd rather have.

There are usually two kinds of salads offered. One is a regular green salad. The other is made up of sliced cucumber and tomatoes, is a kind of light vinaigrette. I particularly enjoy that. There are also a couple raw vegetables (a la crudite).

The buffet always includes basmati rice, which I also quite enjoy. I usually put some chicken and sauce on the rice. There are usually two or three vegetable dishes as well. Sometimes, there's cauliflower with potatoes and onions, or spinach cooked with cream, or cooked eggplant that's kind of been mashed (this one is my favorite), and today, they had garbanzo beans, which I hadn't seen them have before.

There are also usually two chicken dishes. Sometimes it's Chicken Tikka Makhani (tender pieces of chicken cooked in the tandoor and submerged in a tomato and cream sauce enriched with green spices) or Chicken Tikka Masala (bonesless pieces of chicken broiled in the tandoor and then cooked in chef's special sauce) or Chicken Vindaloo (chicken cooked in curry sauce, garnished with pickled onions and potatoes) or one of the other chicken dishes on the menu.

Dessert items usually include watermelon and a few other kinds of melon as well as what I think is gulab jamun (a Northern Indian dessert made from flour and milk, served in a honey syrup).

For someone who's vegetarian, the buffet might not be a good choice, unless you're ok with the vegetarian offerings there. But there's also a regular menu that anyone can order from.

Service is always good, attentive and pleasant. Parking can sometimes be a problem. You can look for spaces out front on Pico or in nearby paid parking lots. They purport to have a parking lot behind the restaurant, but I've never parked there.

I've only gone there once for dinner. Dinner is a much more difficult proposition because I have to pick one item that I want. This is a place where dinner with a few people is better since you can order multiple dishes and share.


Nizam of India
10871 West Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90064
(across from Westside Pavilion, opposite Barnes and Noble)
310-470-1441

lunch buffet is served from 11:30am to 2:45pm daily