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If it’s exotic curries you crave, the adventurous proprietors of the Brick Lane Curry House, on the old Indian row down on East 6th St., will give you a free bottle of beer if you can finish a bowl of their famously punishing phaal curry, which has a foreboding, swampy color and the consistency of sand (I couldn’t). The suitably peppery lamb vindaloo tasted almost soothing by comparison. If you’ve ever dined at the curry houses along 6th Street, the thick, creamy, un-oily variety of chicken tikka masala served here has a disorienting, slightly jarring effect, like stumbling on fresh-baked cherry pie, say, at your local Burger King. — Adam Platt

Daily, noon–4:30 p.m., $13

Lamb vindaloo, $17; chicken tikka masala, $16

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