Nationally renowned for it's vegetarian fare, its menu promises a side of Indian cuisine that you just don't see in the average high street curry house.

The upstairs eating area - there's a shop selling indian delicacies downstairs - is small and unpretentiously decorated, and the welcome is warm and friendly.

We started with the samosas and dahi puri. the former were beautifully light and delicately flavoured, while the later, which came in a huge portion, mixed the lick of green chillies with crunchy dough, the sweetness of tamarind and the welcome coolness of yoghurt.

For the main event, I chose akhu sambharia nu shak, aubergines with a crushed peanut stuffing, potatoes and green chillies in a thick sauce. the subtlety of the flavour was a treat - no attempt here to blast your taste buds with pure heat.

Mt friend's rajma makai, red kidney beans and sweetcorn in a thick tomato gravy was, if anything, even better. this is curry, but not as we know it, making a nonsense of any preconceptions you might have had about non-meat dishes being bland or insubstantial.

The side dishes mark Bobby's out as something special, too. The pilau rice was light, fluffy and liberally dotted with vegetables, the thepla (pan-fried spinach bread) was a tasty change from your common or garden naan, and the dal (hot lentil soup), perfect on it's own or acompanying the main course.

It would have been criminal to skip dessert, given the variety, so we tried the pista barfi and the jalebi. The barfi (pistachio and milk based sweets), were beautifully moist while the jalebi – melt-in-the-mouth orange sugar strands – quickly became a favourite.

It's worth saying that if you're a first-timer at Bobby's (or just indecisive) you can go for the thali, which offers a selection of savoury and sweet for an all-inclusive price under a tenner. the service throughout was attentive without being intrusive, and every bit as friendly as you would expect from a family business.

Even with drinks, the bill for our three courses came to an absurdly low £32. try as you might, you'll struggle to break the bank here. Unless, perhaps, you dawdle too long in the shop on the way out. Even after the huge meal, the temptation to stock up on some of the sweets you've enjoyed upstairs is hard to resist. Don't visit it if you are on a diet, because it will end here in glorious failure.

On the other hand, if you want to taste authentic Indian food, freshly and expertly cooked, there's no better place to go. You might never look at a chicken Madras again.

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Mrs Lakhani, star of local cable TV,masala queen of Britain and head cook Bobby's, Leicester's oldest Indian vegetarian restaurant, would convert a Texan to lentils. When she enthuses over leftovers, you want to run home too many roti breads just to have enough for her leftover roti and coriander curry. And if her publicity machine was as well oiled as Poilâne's in Paris, her fresh bread - flaky, golden millet thepla, speckled with vivid green coriander or fenugreek leaves; sweet, crisp puri filled with a thin cream of cardamom-scented toovar dal; the deep-fried balloon bread, bhatura - would be world famous.

The last time I tried to stuff puri (deep-fried chapattis that sound suspiciously easy when described by Madhur Jaffrey), the result could have inspired Aldous Huxley's remark in Point Counter Point: 'Much fingered... long and lovingly rolled between the palms, of some equivocal substance, at once grimy and gritty, and tasting hauntingly through their sweetness of mutton fat.' Mrs Lakhani's hand on the dough is so light I'd be surprised if she left a fingerprint. She knows that a certain amount of fat is essential for flavour and adds it judiciously - sunflower oil in her case - skimming off any excess. And she is unusual in using no onion or garlic - not for religious reasons, but because her husband thinks their flavours lack subtlety.

This is pretty food, bright with Mrs Lakhani's home-ground spices and daily fresh herbs. It makes up for Leicester, victim of the kind of terrorist town planners who designed the new British Library. if you go on Sunday, though, Belgrade Road's mall architecture is disguised by the vivid saris and lacy golden jewelery of what looks like the entire shopping population of Madras. and at the weekend, Bobby's has unusual specialities; try patra, fresh green malanga leaves rolled with spicy chickpea paste, or ondhwo, a baked savoury cake of carrots and lentils, or the peanut-stuffed whole potato bhajia in crisp batter. On the daily menu, the mogo (cassava) chips are excellent, and so are the vegetable bhajia.

But the bread/cake that made my toes curl with pleasure was a spicy Gujerati speciality ( the menu is primarily Gujerati and south-west inspired) called dhoka that came with a sharp tamarind sauce. It is not a dish I have ever seen on any restaurant menu outside Bombay, and with good reason. If it is done correctly, a ground lentil and rice dough is first soaked for hours, then ground, then fermented overnight. It should then steam to the light sponge texture that brings a glint to the eyes of the Women's Institute. the fermentation should give it a slight but pleasant sourness. Note the 'shoulds': do not even think of attempting this at home. trust me, I tried it. you need a Gujerati pedigree as long as the Mahabharata to make it work.

The dhokla was 'tempered' with sesame and black mustard seeds popped in hot oil, a classic south-west Indian combination, which the little sponges soaked up like... well like sponges. I ate four. Or possibly seven. Apparently, on saturdays, Bobby's sells four or five hundred pounds (in weight) of dhokla, and I'm not surprised. I waddled out at 3pm, cheeks full and eyes bulging, like a cross between a hamster and a King Charles spaniel, my arms laden from Bobby's takeaway counter with dhokla and laddoo and kaju katli (I think). there is a quieter atmosphere for larger groups upstairs, but the downstairs café is the place to be - not least to watch the queues at the takeaway. Bring your own bottle, have a feast for £15 a couple, and be sure to ask Mrs Lakhani about her leftovers before you leave.