As briefly mentioned, Nirvanam recently opened a second branch right by Toranomon subway station, which offers exacly the same excellent menu. The food is plentiful; it's all prepared in-house (not trucked in from the main branch in Kamiyacho); and what's great is that the selection changes daily. Here's a guided tour of what was on a couple of weeks back...
Chicken "kebab fry" (marinated in freshly ground spices and deep-fried, so actually more like kara-age); and an excellent mutton masala with a good level of heat.
Vada (deep-fried lentil doughnuts) and sambar, a soup/dip made in the Karnataka style with lentils, okra and other vegetables, tamarind, jaggery, coconut and spices.
Chicken curry in coconut gravy; and porota (pan bread), both Kerala specials.
A mild vegetable/spinach curry (vegetarian); with khara pongal, a kind of stodgy rice porridge including lentils and spices, that would have been better prepared with long-grain rice.
And here's what it all looked like on the plate.
Or, I should say, plates — as I went back for more...
...a couple of times...
[The last time I noticed the sign asking customers to use/reuse only two bowls].
There's extra hot sauce to pep it all up if need be; there's rice of course, although it's of the Japanese short-grain variety (which means they get docked a point or two in my final reckoning). And there's also dessert:
All in all, a great spread, one you can really fill up on. And good value for ¥1,200. The basement premises are OK for lunch — though as a dining room, I much prefer the original Kamiyacho branch.
Note: it's quite hard to find this branch. The entrance is on the small street parallel with Sotobori-dori. There's a map on the web site here (scroll down), which also gives the daily specials on the lunch menu.
And yes, the sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed that the photo at the top mistakenly ran in the paper along with the side story (on Taj Akasaka).
