What's the best season for eating Indian food? Summer, when all the spices help you sweat out Tokyo's clammy heat? Or in the chill of winter, to put fire in your belly? The answer: Any time at all, if the cooking is as consistently good as it is at Nirvanam.
It is far from Tokyo's biggest, plushest or most sophisticated Indian restaurant, nor the most renowned. But many of Nirvanam's fans — including those who should know best, expats from the subcontinent — rate it as their favorite in the city. Or at the very least, top when it comes to the cooking of South India.
It's a crucial distinction. As anyone who has traveled through the country will know, Indian food is no more a single unified cuisine than is China's. Each region has its own culinary tradition, none more distinct or delicious than those of the deep south, especially Kerala and Tamil Nadu.