Paul Comrie/The Falcon Tandoor Fine Indian Cuisine, located at 5024 University Way N.E., uses a tandoor oven to cook a wide variety of traditional Indian dishes. The restaurant offers a daily lunch buffet in addition to a daily menu.

When you live in Seattle, trying new ethnic foods is absolutely essential. While endless local options can quickly help you find new favorite restaurants and foods throughout the city, going to an unfamiliar spot and traversing a menu that lists item after item of dishes with foreign names and limited descriptions can be intimidating.

Finding out that the delicacy on your plate is too spicy, unappetizing or made out of an animal's innards can quickly put the kibosh on your dining experience.

Enter Tandoor, a restaurant specializing in fine Indian cuisine on University Avenue in the University District. On a street saturated with almost every ethnic food imaginable available at a college budget, Tandoor manages to stand out with an expansive, self-explanatory menu and a very affordable daily lunch buffet offering variety for inexperienced diners.

Their specialties are chicken, lamb, seafood, vegetarian and rice dishes cooked in an overwhelming variety of spicy and savory flavors and styles.

The restaurant gets its name from the "tandoor" the chefs use to cook the traditional favorite tandoori chicken (an Indian barbecue-style chicken marinated in yogurt, garlic, ginger and vinegar) and other dishes. A tandoor is a cylindrical clay oven heated by charcoal or other means that is absolutely essential for cooking the various tandoori kababs and Naan (a type of leavened bread) served in Tandoor and other Indian restaurants.

Tandoor's Indian identity is displayed proudly throughout the dining experience. The moment you enter the door, the recorded sounds of ethnic singing and instruments playing in the background mesh with the bright atmosphere of the dining room's yellow-painted walls and numerous murals depicting Hindu figures and Indian locales like the Taj Mahal.

Several small tables fill the tiny but cozy dining room, offering a slightly communal vibe that can feel the slightest bit crowded during lunch hours. A couple of window tables, however, offer a more intimate experience for two. The location also features a banquet room in the back for large parties of up to 50 people available by reservation.

There wouldn't be any need for a space of that size if the food couldn't draw a crowd, but Tandoor's delicious options have no problem drawing in the hungry.

The large, detailed menu--more like a set of several small menus, really--lists most dishes by type: tandoori breads, tandoori (barbeque) specialties and chicken, seafood, lamb, vegetarian and rice specialties. Each section has around a dozen dishes or cooking variations, featuring entree options from Chicken Tikka Masala (chicken marinated in ginger with lemon juice, spices and cooked in a mildly spicy gravy) to Lamb Vindaloo (succulent pieces of tender lamb cooked with potato and served with a tangy gravy).

Rather than overwhelm the diner, the variety on the menu is more likely to pique your interest and make you want to try a wide variety of dishes. While coming back regularly for the menu options can be tempting, prices might be a deterrent for students on a budget.

The wide variety of Naan breads, including cheese, potato and spinach options, and other sides, such as soups, salads, drinks and desserts, range from $2 to about $5. The average specialty plate, which includes an entree served with saffron palao rice, sometimes with curry sauce or special gravy, costs between $10 and $13. A few variety dinner options that offer samples of many of the foods can even go up to $17.

While a side of Naan and an entree will fill most diners, a full meal will typically exceed $13. This is the only option in the evening, but Tandoor's daily lunch "all-you-care-to-eat" buffet is a perfect alternative for sampling the menu's variety at an affordable price.

For $7 on weekdays and $8 on weekends, the Tandoor buffet offers hot and cold menu highlights from tandoori chicken, butter chicken (chicken tandoori-cooked with fresh tomatoes and cream) and vegetable "samosa" (deep-fried pastries filled with spiced peas) to a variety of rice, curries, sauces, salads and even desserts, such as their wonderful mango custard.

The buffet changes daily but always features favorites for new diners unfamiliar with Tandoor's options. The only downside is the sacrifice of the peak freshness available with orders off of the menu, but the buffet food is regularly refilled and changed out, so it's not a big issue.

The extremely attentive staff should also help new diners ease into the experience of tandoori-cooked Indian cuisine. You'll likely never get to the bottom of your water glass at the rate it gets refilled and any questions or requests you have are likely to be answered with haste.

Tandoor is located at 5024 University Way N.E. and open daily for lunch and dinner with varying hours. They also specialize in catering for parties and offer carry-out options for the menu and buffet. Go to http://tandoor-india.com for a full menu and details about hours, the buffet and dining space and special coupons.