photo by: Courtesy: Globe Indian Food

Chicken Pakora, one of many dishes from Globe Indian Food's menu, is pictured.

Buffets are back. Let that sink in for a moment. In fact, take all the time you need because I want to make sure I beat you to the line (and I’m out of practice running with a shovel.) Any buffet is a step toward a return to normalcy, but I have news of a new restaurant — a bit of a rarity in itself — that features a buffet. That may be a double sign.

Globe Indian Food has opened at 619 Massachusetts St., in the spot that formerly housed Tokyo Sushi before it moved to North Lawrence. When I stopped by, a buffet counter was set up, and manager Manoj Kannarao told me the restaurant planned to begin offering a weekday lunch buffet this week.

The buffet will offer selections from the main menu, which is large. That seems to be one of the calling cards of Globe Indian Food. It has a large number of offerings and several different styles of Indian cuisine.

“We focus on having lots of curries, lots of rices, lots of breads,” Kannarao said.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

Globe Indian Food has opened at 619 Massachusetts St. in downtown Lawrence.

The menu includes almost 20 vegetable curries and about a dozen meat-based curries. As for meats, there’s lots of variety in those too. As is common with Indian food, beef isn’t an offering, but chicken, fish, shrimp, lamb and goat are all used, and sometimes in combination.

As for breads, there’s traditional naan, garlic naan, butter naan, chili naan and Kashmiri naan, which is stuffed with dried fruit and nuts.

The menu features both Northern and Southern Indian dishes, but includes an entire section called South Indian Heaven. That part of the menu includes several dosa dishes, which are crepe-like and are one of the more popular offerings, Kannarao said. Those range from relatively simple, like Ghee roast dosa, which is a crepe cooked in clarified butter, to a uttapam, which is more of a pancake-like dish made of rice and lentil batter that is often topped with onions or mixed vegetables.

photo by: Courtesy: Globe Indian Food

Uttapam, a highly seasoned, pancake-like dish, is one of the offerings on the menu at downtown Lawrence’s Globe Indian Food restaurant.

The restaurant also offers tandoori selections, which are all type of meats cooked in a traditional clay oven. Those offerings include the classic chicken tikka, which is a boneless chicken breast marinated in yogurt and spices, served with basmati rice.

The menu also features biryani, a rice dish that is cooked with a variety of meats, onions, tomatoes, herbs and spices and garnished with nuts. On the weekends, the restaurant serves a special Hyderabadi-style of biryani, which features layers of rice and chicken that steam for long periods of time.

As for the restaurant itself, I don’t have a ton of information on its history. The Lawrence location is its third, with other locations in Topeka and Manhattan. The restaurant’s website says it is owned by a family, not a chain. Kannarao said the owners liked the idea of having a third restaurant in the northeast Kansas area, and they liked towns like Lawrence because they like serving students. The Lawrence location does have a cocktail bar.

The restaurant is closed on Mondays, and it operates on a split schedule, with lunch hours of 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and dinner service from 5 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

Manoj Kannarao, manager of Globe Indian Food’s Lawrence location, stands near a booth in the recently renovated space that opened in April 2021.