Just about every plate I saw coming out of the kitchen at Kanishka was some sort of meat dish, so I had a bad feeling that they would treat their vegetarian dishes as an afterthought, with little care for the flavor, freshness, or nutrition, as many other restaurants do (particularly ones in the Southwest and Midwest). These fears, though, were not only unfounded, but I found the vegetarian dishes to be better than at other restaurants I have tried that were purely vegetarian.

Thali offers a way to sample various dishes by serving several entrées, salads, and a dessert in small bowls. Kanishka's Thali had fewer items than at Udupi Palace, but I thought almost universally they were better than at U.P.

The Dal Soup was the most flavorful item on the sampler plate. It tasted somewhat like pea soup, but did not have the somewhat disgusting texture of puréed peas normally found in the western dish.

Dal Mukhni was one of the main dishes, and is probably something I would order from the menu. However, I thought it could have used some more spices.

Saag Alu was a spinach dish that at first I thought was similar to the spinach casserole found on just about every Indian buffet in the nation. This dish, though, had a better flavor, and was a very good compliment to some of the other dishes made with different types of beans.

Chole Pindi is made with garbanzo beans cooked in masala sauce, and had to be the top dish served in terms of flavor. If anything, though, I thought the flavor might have been a little overdone, with the masala sauce reminding me somewhat of barbecue sauce. I thought this was a very good dish, it was just something I probably would not want to order alone as an entrée.

I got a small Kachamber Salad, made with cucumbers and a small bowl of yogurt on the side. I found it quite satisfying and I would definitely say it is worth ordering if you are not getting a sampler plate on which it is included.

The plate came with both Basmati Rice and Nan bread, but the bread was the clear winner with me, being some of the freshest I have been served.

At the time of my first visit to Kanishka, I can say that it was the best Indian food I had ever eaten. There were some down sides, the main one being that while I liked all the vegetarian dinner items served, there were few that I liked well enough to order as a separate entrée. Still, I thought the food was excellent, most notably in the freshness of the ingredients.