The Indian lunch buffet is a familiar sight in Midtown: long lines of lunchers browsing a table of steam-trays holding murky, undistinguished curries. For workers in the neighborhood, it’s an inexpensive and filling option, but it’s hardly the badge of a destination restaurant. Rangolé, which opened on 46th Street in March, advertises its $7.95 lunch buffet proudly, but offers some interesting, high-quality alternatives as well. The space is unexceptional, even faintly dingy: white tablecloths and multicolored walls with matching napkins. And the service veers unpredictably from endearingly doting to offhand and even faintly adversarial. But Rangolé’s pan-Indian kitchen, the heart of the experience, is under the guidance of the skillful Pannalal Sharma, who cooked for Indira Gandhi for 10 years and, more recently, won a loyal following at a series of New Jersey restaurants.

A standard lineup of food stocks the buffet at lunchtime – pakoras, naan, chana saag, palak paneer – all fresh and well-made, if not particularly exceptional. Upon request, though (and sometimes the request has to be a rather forceful one), the staff will accept orders from the paper lunch menu that’s available at the counter. This alternate route provides a beautiful wealth of chaat ($2.50-$4) – saucy, crunchy snacks that make a welcome lighter lunch. Paired mint and tamarind chutneys, and mellow raita, are the primary flavors, making for options that are cool, tart, sweet, and piquant all at once. The various crunchy, starchy substrates that get slathered in the chutneys are delicious but secondary: potatoes, boiled, fried, mashed, or all three; crisp noodles; puffed rice; delicately brittle breads and wheat chips; chick peas; and combinations and variations thereof. Paapri chaat, which combines firm cooked chick peas with crunchy chips and potatoes, offers an especially scintillating harmony of flavors and textures; amul paav vada, a starch lode consisting of mashed potatoes fried in chick pea batter and served in a soft bun, is another stunner.

Rangolé makes a superior dosa as well. The giant, rolled rice pancakes have a rich, crisply yielding shell that swaddles a variety of flavorful, steaming fillings. The Pondicherry dosa ($5.50), filled with highly spiced seasonal vegetables, and the masala dosa ($4.95), made with delicately fragrant potatoes and onions, stand out in particular.

At dinner, the scene changes. The buffet table stands empty by the door, and the clientele is made up of leisurely families. The menu is different, too, with an emphasis on tandoori dishes, curries, and breads. A large complimentary helping of excellent papadum, hot from the pan with a fresh sheen of oil, launches the meal. The familiar, simple tamarind and mint chutneys come alongside, as well as a potent chili sauce with a vinegary tang. The clay-oven dishes are particularly memorable, with none of the too-brash spicing and overcooking of inferior meat that sometimes passes for tandoori cooking. A tandoori kebab combination appetizer ($9.95) provides a jolt of flavor, or rather several: the sizzling platter holds chunks of chicken breast, moist from long marinating; delicately charred lamb pieces; and minced chicken deeply scented with bittersweet fenugreek. But another starter, of large mushroom caps ($7.95), is so completely smothered in creamy sauce that the mushrooms themselves contribute almost nothing to the dish.

The tandoori bounty continues in the main course, where $19.95 buys an extended version of the combo that also includes peppery red-tinted chicken pieces as well as the paler, milder ones; herb-tinged minced lamb kebabs; and succulent gingery shrimp. Each of these (and others) can be ordered separately as well, for diners who, per haps, want shrimp and nothing but. If presentation on a sizzling cast-iron platter seems humdrum, the restaurant promises to introduce a specialty soon called “War of the Mughal & Rajput” ($19.95), which involves the same tandoori assortment but served flaming and impaled on crossed swords.

The menu offers an abundance of dishes beyond the tandoor, though few are as tasty. The waitstaff eagerly recommends two of the less familiar dishes – chicken Hyderabadi ($9.95) and “mulley fish” ($11.95) – and surprisingly, both turn out to disappoint. The first features slightly dry pieces of white meat chicken in a heavily ginger- and mustard-spiced tomato sauce; the menu describes an enticing honey-and-coconut marinade that is not apparent in the final product. “Mulley fish” is pieces of salmon in a sauce a la Malabar, the southwestern coastal region. On the two occasions that I followed the repeated recommendation, the fish was overcooked and tough, and the thin, tangy brown curry sauce was flavorful enough but hardly worth singling out. But the restaurant’s renditions of many more familiar dishes, like chicken vindaloo ($9.95), are excellent. This chicken is wonderfully tender, and bathed in a fruity, piquant sauce. Lamb kofta ($10.95), too, is excellent: rich-flavored meat and cheese balls in a creamy sauce heady with the bite of cardamom.

Desserts ($2.50) are basic but notable: loose, soupy rice pudding that’s rich with cream and only a little sweet; hot, doughy gulab jamun balls in sticky syrup; and rasmalai, sweetened paneer dumplings in a nutty, spiced cream. The restaurant expects to receive its beer and wine license by the end of May. For its tandoori and its chaat, Rangolé stands out. The tasty, wide-ranging cooking doesn’t break any molds, but it makes an excellent addition to the neighborhood, and followers of the growing chaat scene will be pleased to have another worthy destination.

Rangolé, 41 West 46th St., 212-719-3474.