151 South Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills (310) 786-7858 www.mauryabeverlyhills.com

 

 

The new kid on the block of trendy restaurants serving up sexy ambiance and creative twists on the traditional Indian cookbook is Maurya, tucked away inconspicuously around Kate Mantilini on Doheny Drive.  Alive with color like a Bollywood movie, Maurya is replete with plasma TVs, sensual lounge notes in the air, and the aroma of centuries-old spices.

 

At the table, bite-size papdums (spicy lentil wafers) wait with contrasting, chilled vegetable pickles that you won’t get enough of.  The menu is extensive and undeniably seductive, every dish described in mouthwatering detail but if you get Ajith as your server, you’ll be pretty much taken care of as he is an authority on the menu and genuinely interested in guiding you to hitherto unexplored pleasures for your taste buds.

 

Diving straight into main courses, we begin with one of the restaurant’s specialties - baked stuffed tiger prawns further prepared in a thick and creamy carom and cardamom gravy.  While the impressively sized prawns are delicious, they are a tad bit overcooked and considering they cost just over twenty dollars, a bit pricey for just a handful of them.  From the Tandoori column, where the grilled items and most of the winners reside, we pick chicken drumsticks, a sheer delight and worth coming back for. Stuffed with dry fruits and cottage cheese, marinated in yoghurt and then barbequed in the tandoor, the mildly spiced drumsticks are prepared to perfection and when you cut into them, steam wafts out as if in sheer appreciation.  For the fish tikka, sea bass fillet is marinated with yoghurt and black pepper-corns and then grilled in the tandoor.  The fish is juicy and tender and when charred, the delectable bite-sized morsels are even tastier so contrary to expectation, you may even want to request it well-done. 

 

Somehow, where Maurya excels even further is in its vegetarian dishes.  Okra, not a favorite for many, is splendid here.  Since most Indian vegetables are overcooked, it’s refreshing to find that the okra here is not overcooked.  Served with fire grilled pearl onions, the dish also incorporates garlic, ginger, cilantro, tomatoes and paprika to make a perfectly balanced sauce for the crunchy vegetable.  Another dish of assorted green vegetables with spinach gravy is claimed to have been cooked for Maharajas and results are indeed royal in that the bitter spinach offsets the sweet gourd and peas to perfection. 

 

Be ready to leave your obsession with calories behind because the kulfi, a rich Indian ice cream made with condensed milk and in Maurya’s recipe, with figs, is quite simply, heavenly!  One order is enough to go around and end the night sweetly.

 

Chef J.K. Paul was flown in from Bombay and the marriage of northern and western Indian food on the menu is obvious.  But even as the menu attempts to cull from traditional cooking methods (like Dum Pukht which is cooking in steam and employing specialty brass, copper and aluminum cooking utensils), the tastes here are subtle and mindful of the western palate.  There may be references to Bollywood on the menu, but it’s interesting to note that instead of unleashing the full strength of its spices in the form of filmic excess, Maurya is attempting to use them to reach a certain kind of subtlety not known in Indian cuisine and this is where it succeeds without parallel.  

 

-GD / ZH