Mint Desi Kitchen

It’s fairly easy to find really good, basic Indian/Pakistani food in Orange County. But it’s hard to find elevated Indian/Pakistani food here, and really good elevated versions are even harder to locate. In northern OC, Khan Saab Desi Craft Kitchen is the rare exception, and southern OC has Mint Desi Kitchen. It’s no coincidence that they’re sister restaurants – different menus, different chefs, and different vibes, but with equally high culinary standards that actually justify their higher price points.

They’re both open for dinner seven days a week and late lunches two (Khan Saab) or three (Mint) days, each with different types of “date night” spaces. Although it’s in an otherwise forgettable Laguna Hills plaza, Mint is very attractively decorated inside: Recently renovated after a major fire, the dining room uses leather, plush fabrics, dark woods, and copper-toned metals to evoke old-fashioned fine dining, minus white tablecloths. Completing the old school environment, a black and white movie plays on the dining room’s brick wall with audio at a very low volume, while friendly and attentive servers handle everything from ordering to delivering drinks and food to checking in and bussing tables.

Unlike Khan Saab, which offers an atypically playful and decidedly Pakistani/Afghani-influenced menu with beef (verboten in Indian restaurants) and rustic presentations, Mint’s single-page main menu only offers a handful of hints that this isn’t your typical Indian place: smoked salmon on the kabob menu, “bandar bun” in the appetizers, and a handful of locally uncommon items ranging from street foods (dahi puri, samosa chaat) to shrimp coconut curry and tandoori prawns. Most of the plates range from $18 to $22, with some (naans, papadum) in the $5 range and others (goat karahi, lamb chops) closer to $30. It goes without saying that many local Indian places offer an entire buffet meal for the price of one plate here, which means Mint has something to prove.

Across virtually everything we tried here, the proof was in the plating and the flavors. Mocktails including the Purple Haze (lavender molasses/lime/Seedlip 108) and a rich Piña Colada were beautifully assembled, generously portioned, and every bit as delicious as their alcoholic equivalents, without booze. A mango lassi was smaller, but swirled at the top for a latte-like presentation; it was thick, tasty, and half the price of the mocktails.

Dahi puri – crispy pastry spheres filled with tamarind, potato, and onion – were even better than the similar but more famous pani puris served theatrically with tamarind juice shooters at Khan Saab, using sweet yogurt to deliver a cooler and more filling sensation with each bite. And the aforementioned bandar bun, while smelling more than vaguely of Pillsbury crescent roll dough, arrived as a super-hot skillet of five bread buns with a steel cup of boiling mango chutney in the center, each dip offering a surprising revelation in texture and flavor.