India’s Oven, Pico near Fairfax, Los Angeles. Early 1990s.
India’s Oven served great Indian food on paper plates because they had no room for an industrial dishwasher. The Pico near Fairfax location was small and specific and exactly right.
They burned down during the Rodney King riots in 1992.
If you really wanted it hot, you’d tell the waiter, and he’d say “No no no, you don’t want it that hot!” And if you insisted — your ears would ring with every bite, you’d sweat down the back of your neck, you’d have the most incredible vivid dreams that night, and an uncomfortable time the following morning.
They rebuilt and moved. Something was different about the original, the way these things usually go. I suppose the paper plates were part of it.