From January 2005 100 Very Best Restaurants

Known as the Pink City, Jaipur is one of the jewels of Rajasthan, a northern Indian province west of New Delhi. The restaurant's name did not come by chance; it is the original home of the manager and the chef. The decor includes rows of beads adorned with brilliantly colored birds and a contingent of elaborately dressed puppets.

If you're unfamiliar with Indian food, try one of the restaurant's buffet lunches. For $7.95 on weekdays and $9.95 on weekends you can sample a variety of meat and vegetarian curries as well as chicken roasted in the tandoor, rice dishes, appetizers, breads, and dessert.

Most of the appetizers are battered and deep-fried, including fish, chicken, and vegetable samosas and pakoras. Chat-papdi is a combination of flour chips, steamed potatoes, garbanzo beans, yogurt, mint, and tamarind sauce. Good main courses are the whole or half marinated tandoor chicken; the tandoori lamb chops; the unusual murgh shekhawat, chicken cooked with brown onion paste and tomatoes; shrimp malabaar, cooked with spiced coconut sauce; and safed maas, chunks of lamb with a mild, light, and creamy nut sauce. There are many vegetarian dishes and ten breads, including several stuffed with vegetables or lamb.