Southern Spice in NHP: Point and order

I’m easily distracted in restaurants by passing food. Last night at Southern Spice in New Hyde Park, a waiter walked by our table carrying a plate of food that was visually smoking, audibly sizzling. “What was that?” I asked on him on his return trip. “It’s not on the menu," he replied. "It’s the paneer pudina tikka.”

Paneer pudina tikka, it turns out, is a vegetarian dish wherein slabs of paneer (firm, fresh cheese) are marinated in a mint-cilantro-yogurt mixture, then skewered between pieces of red and green pepper and roasted in the tandoor oven. When everything is nicely toasted, the skewers are unthreaded onto a screaming hot griddle on which slices of onions are already starting to char. Goodness gracious, this was one fantastic dish. (Nor did the rest of the meal disappoint: We had Southern Spice’s signature pepper-crusted tandoori duck breast and, a new one for me, a gravy-less lamb curry called pepper sukka varuval.)

When I’m in a restaurant serving a cuisine that I’m not fluent in, I always pay attention to the food that other diners order. In Indian restaurants, the staff always speaks English and we can have a conversation about the dish in question. At Chinese restaurants where little English is spoken, I have been known to drag the waiter over to a neighboring table to point to a dish, and then to mime that I want one, too. This actually works pretty well.

Southern Spice Chettinad Indian Cuisine is at 1635 Hillside Ave., New Hyde Park, 516-216-5448.