Tom Fedor/The Gazette Chef/owner Peter Gomes has prepared salmon cakes, white meat chicken tikka and tandoori chicken.

Fortunately, he has a sure hand in the kitchen and a friendly, attentive staff.

The vast subcontinent of India is home to a number of cuisines and India Garden reflects many of them. Its kitchen uses only halal meats, but at the same time features a wide variety of vegetarian dishes.

The restaurant's sienna walls sport Indian artifacts and native music provides a quiet background for dining.

Breads are a staple of the Indian diet and India Garden's naan, light, crispy and bubbly from the tandoori oven, is exemplary. I also don't think I've ever had it served with a brushing of ghee (clarified butter) on top.

I look forward to trying a couple of specialty bread -- tandoori keema naan stuffed with ground lamb and onion and pershawari naan, which stuffed with coconut, almonds and raisins, sounds dessert-worthy.

Chicken is at the top of the list of tandoori favorites in my book and the red-toned, velvety textured (it is marinated in yogurt and spices) dish here is superb. Tandoori salmon emerges a bit more cooked than some tastes might prefer and the sauce tends to mask the natural flavor of the fish. Tandoori dishes are accompanied by fluffy basmati rice.

Boneless pieces of tandoori chicken breast, recooked in a creamy tomato sauce, emerge as butter chicken. Think of it as Indian comfort food. Tender chunks of lamb curry are suffused with cardamom.

In a nation with a majority of vegetarians, you expect to find varied and wonderful vegetable dishes.

India Garden does not disappoint in this regard. Each combination of vegetables has its own masala or mixture of spices and each is delicious.

For starters, there are vegetable pakoras (deep fried fritters made with chickpea flour) and bhaji (the Indian version of fried onion rings). Along with such standards as dal (lentils), saag paneer (puréed curried spinach with fresh cheese), aloo mateer (potatoes and peas), channa dal (split peas) and chickpeas and lentils, you'll find a mixed vegetable curry and mixed vegetable jhalfrazie, a nut-enriched korma and a cream-sauced malai kofta (fritters). All those years of parental nagging about eating your vegetables might have been unnecessary if you grew up in an Indian family.

Nothing was spicy in the extreme, but had I wanted to enliven the dishes further, I had only to reach for the condiments -- chutneys, pickles, tamarind sauce and coriander-chili sauce, which would have added a sweet, salty, sour or hot edge to the food respectively. To balance a hot dish, there's always raita (yogurt).

The thinned yogurt drink, lassi, makes a refreshing beverage to go with the meal either in a sweet version (mango lassi) or a salty one.

Indian desserts tend to be creamy and sweet: pista badam kheer (rice pudding with pistachios and cardamon), vermicelli (thin noodle) pudding or rasmalai (fresh cheese balls flavored with cardamom and served with cream).

Gulab jamum is different, a light confection made from flour and powdered milk that's quickly deep-fried and then soaked in syrup.

An all-you-can-eat lunch buffet, including a salad bar, steamed basmati rice and dessert, is available weekdays for $6.95. A larger selection is served on Sundays from 5 to 9 p.m. for $9.95. Either would make an excellent introduction to Indian food.

India Garden, 1321C Rockville Plaza, Rockville, MD 301-838-0000