Malai Marke Serves Unique Indian Seafood - East Vilage

Bust out of your customary Indian-food groove at the East Village's new Malai Marke.

Sure, there are universal menu workhorses, like mango lassis ($5) and chicken tikka masala ($15) here. But what lifts this restaurant above the rest of the peddlers of Indian cuisine on East Sixth Street's Curry Row are distinctive dishes with a surfeit of seafood and coconut, plucked from India's coastal regions of Goa, Kerala and Mangalore.

There is chicken xacuti ($14), a fierce Goan dry curry cooked with roasted coconut, poppy seeds and peanuts, tempered by the sweet balm of a side of coconut rice ($6).

Tangy jhinga luchi ($9)–shrimp spiced with mustard seeds and fresh curry leaves–is accompanied by flash-fried luchi bread. Slow-cooked black-lentil dal makhini ($11) is prepared malai marke ("with extra cream," in Hindi slang), and is lavished with butter, ginger and fenugreek.

You'll also want bowls of mango chutney ($2) and refreshing raita ($3) to help crowd the table.

A lively side of bindi sasuralwali ($13), or "okra you would eat at your in-laws' house," is verdant with cilantro, garlic and caramelized onion, and will do nicely until you find an Indian family to marry into.