Anagara by Ed Milich
	I live in the South Bay of Los Angeles. I work near the Torrance Airport, where I am lucky enough to be within a few miles of six separate Indian lunch buffets! One of my favorites is a recent addition to the Torrance area restaurant scene, Angara. Located just blocks from American Honda on Torrance boulevard, Angara’s lunch buffet is a well stocked introduction to their menu. Owners Hok and Tasmina have worked diligently to get their restaurant off the ground, and their efforts are beginning to pay off for them as the restaurant is rapidly gaining popularity. In the less than a year that the restaurant has been open, it’s transformed from a relatively unknown “hole in the wall” to one of the stand out lunch spots for Honda and other local workers. I now have to show up around 11:45 to beat the noontime rush.  The buffet starts with, Pakoras, fried onion fritters, which I cover with berry- flavored sauce. I then proceed down the buffet line, piling on salad, seasoned rice, long strips of chewy Nan bread, creamed spinach Saag and potato and chick pea (AKA garbanzo beans in SoCal) Aloo Matar. Angara usually features at least one lamb and one chicken dish in their buffet every day.  If you ask nicely, your server may also bring you a small basket of Lentil Papadam, a flat, cracker-like bread, which complements the hot chewy Naan nicely. The chicken Tikka Masala is especially good, although it sometimes takes a bit of digging in the buffet dish to find white meat chicken. A pet peeve of mine is restaurants serving thigh or dark meat chicken in stewed dishes, because it’s easy to disguise inferior cuts of meat in thick, opaque sauces. Chicken breast obviously costs more than lesser cuts such as thighs, so it’s understandable that an inexpensive lunch buffet might not feature all white meat. Even so, the Marsala sauce is exceptional. It’s a deep clay red, silky smoothy and slightly spicy. It even holds up over the course of a few days in my refrigerator when I carry some home. The lamb dishes such as their lamb Vindaloo are also wonderful, packed full of lean cubed lamb and spicy brown sauce. I can usually fit two or three trips to the buffet into me before I’m singing the 1:00 PM lunch overdose blues. Finally, the buffet even features desert; usually rice pudding. The pudding is wonderful, featuring sugary, thin rice milk, tender rice and scattered raisins. Lately, the buffet has been featuring a spicy carrot pudding which is also a wonderful end to a great lunch. Unlike many other Indian buffets with unchanging, static menus, Angara’s menu changes slightly every few weeks. This is part of the charm of the restaurant, as a guest may occasionally be pleasantly surprised by changes to the buffet menu. I also like Angara for dinner. The Chicken Tikka Masala, along with breaded and fried potato Samosas are my regular order. For the dinner version, the Tikka Masala comes with all chicken breast, spiced and then cooked in the tandoori and then soaked in creamy, spicy red sauce. These guys have earned a spot in my cell phone speed dialer, for good reason. The $7.95 lunch buffet starts with salad, ends with desert, includes a drink, and is a stand out value for lunch in Torrance, in Los Angeles’s South Bay. Gold Star.
		Anagara 2170 Torrance Blvd, Torrance, CA 90501 (310) 320-9090