Street food comes with heat at Decatur’s Tava Indian Bistro

The focus at this newcomer in the Decatur strip mall known as Patel Plaza is Northern Indian street food cooked on the tava, a large frying pan that is roughly like a flattened wok. The dining room even has a window into the kitchen so that diners may peer in and watch the cook stirring quick fry-ups on a pair of tavas.

There’s plenty to explore on the menu, which ranges from familiar kababs and tikka masalas to less common options like lamb brains and kidneys. In general, the dishes at Tava come fierce with heat and a little indistinct in flavor. The lamb pasanda — leg of lamb sliced up and cooked in a deep red masala — was bracingly hot with chilies and a little greasy, so much so that I wasn’t able to distinguish much, particularity in the other spices.

But there’s at least one don’t-miss. Order chora chat and you will be rewarded with black-eyed peas, each one cooked to a crisp exterior and creamy interior and enveloped in the overwhelming flavors of tamarind and cilantro. Sweet, salty, crunchy, soft: They’re as addictive as lab-engineered snack food.