India has 21 major regions, each with a distinct cuisine. It is rare to find as many of them represented in South Florida as at 4-month-old Indian Palate in Coral Gables, where chef-owner Jay Mariadoss' menu ranges from vibrant versions of street snacks (chaats) to rich Mughlai (royal) dishes.

Mariadoss' Christian surname is a legacy of Portuguese colonization of his native region on the southeastern coast. In the 16th century, Iberians brought their religion along with New World ingredients such as the chile pepper, potato and tomato, all mainstays of Indian cuisine today.

Mariadoss, 35, went to cooking school in his hometown, Chennai (formerly Madras) and honed his skills at Taj hotels around India before landing a job at 21 as a chef on a Carnival cruise ship. Next came hotel work in South Florida and the Cayman Islands, ending with a stint at Vix at the Victor Hotel on Ocean Drive.

The space he found for his own place (formerly La Festival) came with a huge wood-burning pizza oven similar to a tandoor in which he makes puffy naan bread and cooks meat and fish dishes in clay pots. Mariadoss toasts and grinds whole spices to make the masala (spice mixture) for each dish, using his mother's recipes as a guide.

His lunch buffet offers a mix of regional dishes and a chaat station where diners mix puffed rice with an array of chutneys and thin chickpea-flour vermicelli called sev. Soft-shell crab pakoras (fritters) are served with shrimp and calamari in tangy tamarind confit. Corn fritters come with a trio of lassi yogurt shooters (salty, sweet mango and perfumed rosewater).

For a taste of northern India, there's tandoori quail, dal makhani (black lentils stewed with butter and cream) and fragrant biryani (basmati rice steamed with spices and bone-in pieces of chicken).

South Indian vegetarian dishes include vadas (savory lentil doughnuts), avail (veggies in coconut milk), and uttaapam (lentil pancakes). There's also Goan fish curry with kokum (a sour dried plum) and Chettinad chicken from Tamil Nadu with lots black pepper.

Cool off with mango kulfi (ice cream) and a candied black cherry in a spoonful of honey. Expanding your Indian palate just got easier.

Linda Bladholm's latest book is Latin and Caribbean Grocery Stores Demystified.

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