Raja Fine Indian Cuisine

A table headed to the Avon Theatre has a narrow window and a wide range of appetites, and Raja Fine Indian Cuisine sits directly across the street, built to serve both. Downtown, a few steps off Market Square, Raja has grown from a Stratford Indian kitchen into one that now runs a full Thai menu alongside the Indian one — two distinct repertoires under a single roof, ordered from the same table. It is not a fusion experiment. It is two complete kitchens that happen to share an address, a dining room, and a single set of hours.

The Indian side is where Raja built its name, and butter chicken remains its clearest signature — tandoor-barbecued chicken finished in a creamy tomato gravy and butter, rich without tipping into heavy. The tandoor does much of the work beyond it: tandoori chicken, chicken tikka, fish tikka, king prawn tikka, and paneer shashlik all come off the same fire. The curries run from a beef rogan josh and a chicken korma among the chef's specials to chicken tikka masala and a king prawn jhalfrezi. Vegetable cooking gets real estate rather than a corner — paneer makhani, chana masala, and a biryani offered in chicken, lamb, shrimp, goat, and vegetable. A seafood platter and a rotation of soups round out a card that runs from appetizers to desserts. Breads arrive to match: plain naan, garlic naan, and the sweet, nut-filled peshwari.