Our waitress seemed to know the question before it had escaped my mouth. I started. "Do you have any -- " "No," she said. "It's bring-your-own beer. We don't have a license yet."

So much for a cold beer with the spicy food at Himalaya, a tiny Indian restaurant on Main Street in Manchester. We might not have had any alcohol, but at least we had a psychic server.

Perhaps if we had asked her what she thought we'd like we might have had better luck. As it was, we simply picked a few items that looked interesting, winding up with a meal of monotonous gravy-like textures.

It's not as if the too-dim lighting at Himalaya was detracting from some elegant visuals; the interior is unremarkable, spruced up with a few bright prints and pictures, a few festive tissue-paper pineapple decorations and a TV. It would have been nice to see the food a little better though. In the realm of atmospheric lighting, restaurants need to weigh the value of that cozy, dim, tucked-away feeling against the customer's desire to inspect what they put in their mouths.

We started munching on the thin and crisp papadums, dipping them in the watery chutneys and scooping out small piles of bright and tart tomato-onion relish. The chutneys were a bit anemic.

For appetizers we tried the chicken chat -- a sort of warm chicken salad seasoned with what the menu calls "fiery hot spices," but which tasted like a garam masala (a versatile Indian spice mixture) that was heavy on the cardamom. This came on top of a layer of slices of pale tomato and crowned with rings of sliced onions. In addition to the chat, we got a half order of the assorted appetizer platter, which came with harra barra kebabs (sort of like a less dense Indian version of falafel), assorted vegetable fritters, and batter-fried potatoes and broccoli. The platter was a little heavy on the pastry and fried coatings -- not a light option. And the batter coatings seemed like they had been sitting under the hot lamp a little too long.

We also ordered some naan (puffy bread cooked in a clay oven.) You'll just have to imagine me winking my fingers in the form of air quotes when I say "naan," because these pieces didn't have that desired puff and lightness; it seemed like toasted pita bread.

The menu at Himalaya is divided up into vegetable dishes, chicken, seafood, lamb and goat, tandoori items (kabobs, chicken, salmon or shrimp cooked in the clay oven), biryanis, and dal (lentil) dishes. We tried the palak paneer (seasoned spinach with cubes of homemade cheese). We also ordered the chicken dupiaja -- cooked with onion, green peppers and curry sauce -- and an order of shrimp vindaloo.

The menu boasts that the dishes at Himalaya are cooked family-style, and there indeed was a home-cooked feel to the food.

The sauces for the entrees all had a uniformly thick consistency, sort of like pureed onions. The flavors went from mild (the palak paneer) to quite hot (the vindaloo). We felt like the seasoning was unevenly applied. In dishes with so many flavor notes, the artistry comes out in the careful blending. And in the palak paneer there were spiky tastes that popped out -- was it fenugreek? -- like a too-strong voice that stands out in a choir.

The vindaloo was chunky and assertive. The large shrimp were butterflied, but with their tails still on. There were long boat-shaped pieces of potato mixed in as well.

We were the only diners at Himalaya on a weekend night. One person came in to place a to-go order, but otherwise it was quiet. That said, it took a little longer than one would hope to be served. Granted, Indian food is famously one of the most time-consuming cuisines to prepare. Our waitress was attentive (since we were the only table it would have been surprising if she hadn't been), she was always there to fill up my water glass as the burning feeling from the vindaloo increased.

Not able to finish, we took a lot of the food home. It wasn't until we ate under the bright light of our kitchen that we could see the different colors of each dish.

Extras:

Cuisine Indian Spirits BYOB