Reviews Gina Zollman, Culinary Column Dhaba Restaurant has been thriving at the same location, Main St. and Bicknell in Santa Monica, for 30 years. Started by a native Indian couple who had first tried academic careers, the restaurant serves a “home style,” mostly northern and western Indian cuisine. Their focus has always been on achieving dishes of great flavor, visual appeal and last but not least, health-consciousness. They make their own yogurt, roast their own spices and prepare menu items such as their lamb with great attention to detail and flavor. On this evening, we were lucky enough to spend a little time with the owners and get the best that Dhaba has to offer. They started us off with a tasting menu of appetizers, one more delicious than the last. The “sev puri” was a little tostada type hors d’oeuvre, light and crunchy and topped with a tamarind sauce. Delicious. Then we tried the “handwa,” a spiced cornbread, that maybe six restaurants in the U.S. serve. We also had a deep fried garbanzo selection, which was not at all greasy, as was the samosa, both light and tasty. The highlight had to be the roasted corn wheels, fresh corn grilled, sliced into little wheels for easy eating. Very flavorful and good. There are apparently plenty of Indian beers to cool you off during your spicy meal, and while we didn’t try any, Dhaba does offer the best of them. They also have a modest wine list for those who wish to partake of wine, which is consumed less often in India. We ordered hot tea and a diet coke! They did not offer coffee as most of their clientele prefer beer or chai teas. Dhaba served chai tea before it became trendy! 80-90 percent of their business comes from repeat customers, making their “Truck stop oasis” (the translation of “Dhaba”) a real home away from home for many. Our main meal was so varied it’s hard to know where to start. Suffice it to say, we probably tried a third of the menu! Seriously, the hummus, raita and kachumber were refreshing and nicely done. Our waitress brought out what must have been ten dishes, one after the other. The mehti was a fabulous sole dish, with fenugreek spicing, subtle and fragrant. The lamb Vindaloo was very tender, cooked just right, and the tandoori shrimp had a nice kick to them, not over the top. The dal, which apparently is eaten daily with almost every meal in India, was light and blended well with a lot of the dishes, as it should. All the food is prepared with olive oil, no butter, and it makes for much lighter fare. Of the side vegetable dishes, my favorites were the garbanzos with red onion and spices (channa masala) and the spinach eggplant (baingan saag). I also just loved the cauliflower (gobi aloo), probably the best I’ve ever tasted, with a lovely cumin and ginger flavor. To underscore the health aspect of this restaurant, I noticed there was no greasy aftertaste or residue on my plate. They truly keep their word about making it homey and healthy. We topped off a very wonderful evening with some Indian desserts. The mango ice cream is a signature dish there at Dhaba, to the point that they even considered mass marketing it. It is simply astonishingly good, just like biting into a cold mango. The Kheer (rice pudding) was delicately seasoned with saffron and cinnamon, and topped with sliced almonds, and I ate every luscious bite of it, as if I had any room left! The owners sure have a good thing going at Dhaba, a very nice oasis in this big city.