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Just a few doors down from the famous buffet at Jackson Diner, the smaller, two-floor Delhi Palace, folky with murals of Indian village scenes, holds its own against its more polished neighbor. The buffet impressively draws from the entire menu, with a "make your own chaat" bar offering aloo tikki (potato patties), cucumber-tomato salad, an intense, mixed-vegetable pickle and assorted raitas and chutneys, and six different curries, such as a special of paneer bhurji (small curds of fresh cheese with spices, peas and tomatoes), as well as tandoori chicken and accompaniments of nan and rice. Waiters occasionally make the rounds to bring freshly-made mini-dosas to buffet-goers. Among the items on the full menu, the butter masala dosa is a lacy, crisp rice-and-lentil flour crepe, filled with mustard seed-spiked potatoes and drizzled with butter. Shrimp vindaloo has a complex, deep flavor, though it has less of a vinegar-and-chile kick than many renditions. Papri chat, on the other hand, an appetizer of chickpeas and potatoes, is drizzled with a sauce so sweet that it tastes like dessert. It's wise to pass it up in favor of real desserts like gulab jamun (fried "doughnuts" in syrup) or creamy rice pudding. — Sarah Breckenridge

Mon.—Fri., $8.95; Sat.—Sun., $9.95

Butter masala dosa, $7.95; shrimp vindaloo, $16.95