Lalit Pant has brought his fragrant and flavorful Moghlai-style cuisine to Torrance. Previously in Santa Monica he moved his popular Nawab restaurant from the Westside to the South Bay last November, renaming it Nawaab Shahib.
With a bigger menu and larger premises, Nawaab Shahib, in the former Invitation to India spot at the Day’s Inn, seats up to 200 people. Spread over three rooms, it’s a perfect place for private parties on one hand, intimate dinners on the other. In the main dining room, done in green and white with Indian art and artifacts, early diners find comfortable window booths to watch the sun setting over the Pacific Coast Highway. There’s a sense of history in the cuisine of northern India, bearing the stamp of the Moghuls who swept from Mongolia through Persia and down into India. Meat, especially lamb, is more important in dishes from this region than the south. Ghee, nutty clarified butter, gives a silky quality to basmati rice in pulaos and biryanis, resembling Persian pilaffs
Secrets to the best Indian cooking lie with their skilled chefs. With no tradition of written recipes, they were passed on orally from father to son. Former Nawaab chefs Bhim Singh, Sucha Singh from Taj Hotels India and Harpal Singh have created a menu similar to Nawab’s, with more vegetarian selections and the less familiar street food. Everything is house-made, except papadums.
While we can’t resist samosas, crispy pastry triangles filled with seasoned mashed potatoes and peas, to be eaten with hot mint chutney, sweet-sour tamarind sauce and achar, a spicy carrot pickle, there are other tempting appetizers. Bhel puri is a favorite Bombay snack combining wide and slim fried noodles, garbanzo beans, diced potatoes, red onions and mint. Papri chat (or salad) of crisp wafers topped with potatoes and sweet-sour sauce also is popular. Spinach kulcha, slapped flat by the hand and baked on the sides of a tandoor in a matter of minutes, is more than a bread, another tasty beginning.
The centerpiece of their kitchen is the tandoor. Tandoori chicken is the most famous, browned by the intense heat of the clay oven, not tinted red by food color, with a chicken leg as tender as breast meat. More unusual, but equally delicious, rib lamb chops and chunks of Chilean sea bass, marinated and grilled in the tandoor until tender and succulent, also come to the table on sizzling platters with browned onions. In India, dinner is eaten no earlier than 8:30 p.m., with all dishes from soup to dessert served at once. Catering to a local clientele, dinner is offered in courses at Nawaab Sahib. Distinctively spiced and aromatic are dishes such as chicken tikka masala with mild tomato cream, Bombay alu of diced potatoes sauteed with cumin and onions until well browned, Kashmiri pulao studded with fruits and nuts and saag paneer. Saag (a creamed spinach mixture), a classic with paneer (Indian cheese like firm tofu), cauliflower or potatoes, also makes a delicate moss-green sauce for prawns, chicken or lamb. These are presented in little chafing dishes over candle warmers. Pant said, “It stays warm, so you can eat it little by little, when you want.”
Lightly salted or mango-sweetened lassi, the classic yogurt shake, and Indian beer are popular. White wine is served with style, the waiter bringing an ice bucket with the chilled bottle and frosty glasses. From the mostly California wine list, the 1998 Ferrari-Carano Fume Blanc and 1997 Clos du Bois Merlot have enough fruit to suit a meal of such complex flavors, from $20.
While saffron often flavors and colors pulao, it also underscores the rich, not overly sweet ice cream called kulfi with pistachios, while mango stars in another.
Appetizers begin at $3, tandoor specialties from $8, curries from $9.50, vegetarian dishes from $7, rice from $2 and breads from $1.50, lassi from $2, most desserts are $3, weekday lunch buffet is $6.95, Saturday and Sunday Champagne brunch is $8.95.
The restaurant is open for lunch daily from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., dinner Sunday to Thursday from 5 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday from 5 to 10:30 p.m

Nawaab Sahib
4111 Pacific Coast Highway
Torrance
(310) 373-0331
At the beautiful Bombay Palace on Wilshire, 194 golden figurines depicting Hindu gods are tucked into wall niches and 86 items are listed on the menu of this restaurant seating 80.
Part of an international chain of Indian restaurants from London to Canada, diners are treated to Punjabi specialties, captured in their cookbook for consistency in its fleet of restaurants. “The Bombay Palace Cookbook,” by Stendahl, Caravan Publishing, New York, published in 1985, still is available for those who wish to recreate Indian food at home, $19.95.
While the centerpiece of Moghul kitchen is the tandoor, the famous clay oven of great heat, General Manager Harneet Singh Taneja suggested we try some curries with whole wheat roti bread, baked on the sides of the tandoor.
Spiced to your liking, all the curries come at once, family style. Choosing mild, we were pleased with the aromatic makhani chicken of julienned tandoori chicken with a gentle tomato cream and lamb bhuna Punjabi, a regional delicacy. Popular vegetarian dishes include peas pulao of basmati rice dotted with peas, palak paneer or creamed spinach with Indian cheese, baingan bharta of eggplant, and aloo gobhi masala of cauliflower and potatoes, sprinkled with cilantro for color.
From the mostly California wine list, the 1998 Concilio Pinot Grigio Trentino from Italy is crisp and dry with enough floral character to suit a highly seasoned dinner, at $19.
Appetizers start at $3.95, Indian breads from $2.50, tandoori specialties from $9.95, chicken and lamb from $11.95, vegetarian dishes from $8.50, rice from $3.95. Set dinners include the palace feast for two at $42.95, palace sizzling platter at $17.95 and vegetarian thali at $15.95.
The restaurant is open daily for lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., dinner 5:30 to 10 p.m.

Bombay Palace
8690 Wilshire Boulevard
Beverly Hills
(310) 659-9944