India Off the Beaten Path

For their latest venture, Dhamaka, the owners of Queens hit Adda delve deeply into the country’s most local pleasures.

- By Adam Platt

Searching out a fiery new iteration of Sichuan noodles, say, or a pot of dry curry cooked the way it’s cooked in the kitchens of central Pakistan has always been a fine momentary cure whenever the urge to travel hits, especially in this international city and especially now. So if you’re feeling a little restless after a year’s hibernation on the couch, and if you’ve ever dreamed of touring the far-off culinary corners of India—places where the regional delicacies include well-simmered goat kidneys, lamb ribs steamed in pockets of banana leaves, and chunks of tenderized dogfish—then I suggest you strap on a mask and amble down to the jangling, brightly lit PanIndian bistro Dhamaka, which opened a couple of months ago near the entrance to the new, spaceship-size Essex Market building on the Lower East Side.