Reviews Merrill Shindler, LA Times Where most Indian restaurants lean strongly toward a sort of “night of New Delhi” vibe, with flickering lights, heavy draperies, and soft wafting of incense, Dhaba is clean, airy, and freshly scrubbed, with a sense of Santa Monica sea, sky, and surf. Indeed, very few of the forms found in the traditional Indian-restaurant-in-America are evident at Dhaba. A pleasant dining area has been set up outdoors, and the indoor ambience would do just as well for quiche and Sunday brunch as for samosa and pakora. Indeed, there’s even a California edge to the food – a freshness of vegetables and a cleanness of flavors that amount to something of a California-India cuisine. The offerings at Dhaba come from all over the subcontinent, including a chicken curry from the north and a fish curry from the south. Curry is not always curry and the differences are interesting to explore, with the curry from the hotter south coming across as more pungent, more inclined to raise a sweat on your upper lip and bring a glow to your cheeks. All the familiar dishes are here – the fine Indian breads known as naan, the soothing raita, the cheerful pakora and samosa. The vegetable dishes, all freshly made, were the hit of the meal: eggplant with spinach, a fabulous red bean dhal, a bowl of cauliflower dyed bright amber with turmeric. The vegetables had that freshness of texture and taste that many associate more with the West than the East, though the spices were definitely foreign and strange. At Dhaba, East meets West, and we all eat better for the experience.