Short of being invited into the kitchen to sample from the bubbling pots, a brunch buffet is the best way to get acquainted with a restaurant and its dishes. If it’s cheap, all the better, and if it’s Indian cuisine, your odds of satisfaction go up once again. At twelve bucks per person, the Sunday brunch at India certainly gets full points as a bargain. And they make smart decisions about the preparations, so you’re likely to be pleased whether you’re familiar with Indian food or new to it.

Back a decade or so ago, before there were many good Indian restaurants around here, it was Amar Singh’s little Thayer Street precursor to India, Curry in a Hurry, that made me stop saying I could take or leave Indian cuisine. Singh, with a leg up as an early arrival, now has an empire encompassing venues on Main Street in Warren, Post Road in East Greenwich, and Dorrance and Hope streets in Providence.

We checked out the brunch in East Greenwich. The prominent location has been home to other restaurants, including a Raphael’s offshoot. India has paintings to remind you of the subcontinent, rather than Italy, with a mural depicting camels and busy travelers. Enter on a Sunday, between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., and the first thing to attract your attention will be a line of five or six chafing dishes, their big copper covers gleaming above them, surrounded by even more good things to eat. We didn’t have long to wait as a table was cleared in the sunny front section.

The restaurant (full menu available at www.indiarestaurant.com) has always had a commitment to heart-smart dining, traditional recipes modified accordingly. Samosas are baked, rather than fried, the baked chicken is skinless, and canola or olive oil is used instead of clarified butter.

We started out with soup, a five-lentil and spinach regular-menu offering, back-of-the-throat hot and cilantro-garnished. It was quite good with some of the airy lentil-flour wafers called papadum. Fortunately, instead of these being prepared plain, as is the style in southern India, they’re sprinkled with herbs here before baking. Being so thin, the pieces melt in your mouth like bewitched flavors coming out of a trance.

Another appetizer tray contained an endless supply of wraps sliced into sushi-size portions, both curried chicken and succulent portobello. A simple lettuce salad had a tasty ginger and honey dressing. Speaking of the starters, the naan alone makes the price right, since it’s normally $12 for a basket of the flat bread with all six toppings — from minced garlic to ginger root and honey, passing through basil pesto and chili/cilantro.

At India, the moist tandoori chicken, as is the custom, is baked traditionally in a clay oven. But it’s yellow from curry, instead of red from food coloring, as is usual elsewhere, because of the kitchen’s announced aversion to artificial ingredients. Under another copper dome was shrimp biryani, which is a rice dish, reddish with spices. Basmati rice, with peas and flecks of cilantro, was there as a base for curried mango chicken and a vegetable curry that seemed to contain an entire garden.

That last buffet dish was prepared jalfrezi, supposedly medium hot, but it seemed hotter, though no vindaloo filling-melter. Maybe you’re tougher than I am When I remarked to our dining companion, Peter, that I’d rate it far north of mild, he shook his head and replied that he must have made too many trips to Mexico. That said, and knowing that nobody goes to an Indian restaurant for the basmati, be forewarned. Although if you anticipate taking too big a bite of something and no longer being able to blink, order one of India’s delicious mango lassis ahead of time, for a yogurt cool-down.

And save room for dessert. In addition to the traditional rice pudding, spiced and not overly sweet, there is a bowl of sliced fresh fruit — from kiwi to strawberry, with fresh banana slices nicely not going brown, probably because they were bathed with lemon juice. You can dribble mango cream sauce on top.

The place seemed somewhat understaffed during our visit. Since we were serving ourselves, the inconveniences, such as a running shortage of samosas and soup bowls (though not soup, or any other dishes, that we noticed), were minimal. And when it became apparent that we weren’t going to get a basket of the delicious looking naan we were coveting on the other tables, we had to flag down a server and request it. No biggie. At India, the appetizing food will quickly distract you from secondary concerns.

Bill Rodriguez can be reached at billrod@reporters.net