Aangan Indian Restaurant, 559 Barkly St, West Footscray. Phone: 9689 4175

Aangan’s food has come our way several times – all of them well before Consider The Sauce was launched.

In its earliest days, Aangan was a very makeshift affair with a small but ridiculously cheap range of food.

Just our kind of place in other words!

We visited again a few times when it went more formal and ritzy.

Since then, it has lost out in our affections to the plethora of places doing hit-and-run thalis, dosas, biryanis and other super cheapo Indian tucker in this part of West Footscray and elsewhere not too far away in the inner west.

I recall being told by a pal that Aangan was introducing a lunch menu more of the street food, cheap eats orientation in order to meet the challenge posed by its neighbouring competitors.

That information lay dormant until I happened to be passing and saw a mid-week table occupied.

OK, let’s give it a go!

The lunch menu advice I had received is correct – I am delighted to find quite a long list of goodies at very affordable prices.

They include gol guppe, cholley bhuturey, Punjabi parantha, some Indo-Chinese dishes and the expected idlis, vadas and dosas.

(I have used their spellings as on the Aangan lunch menu – see below.)

But what’s with the thalis, be they meat or vegetarian?

They are listed as including one chaat dish, entree, three curries, raita, salad, rice, roti and dessert.

Blimey – I am seriously intrigued.

But at $20, they’ll keep for a more special occasion.

Besides, they sound like they may be a sharing proposition.

So a modest masala dosa ($9.50) it is for me.

It’s very good.

Though the pancake itself is among the smallest I have ever encountered.

But the filling of turmeric-tinged potatoes, mustard seeds, curry leaves and onions providing textural diversity is very fine indeed.

I am served two coconut-based chutneys, though struggle to perceive any difference between them.

The third, red and usually more spicy accompaniment is rather mild but good.

The nice-and-salty sambar is also mild, but I gleefully slurp up the whole lot.

It’s great to know there’s another very affordable Indian lunch option available in this neighbourhood.