Origin India

Remember when happy-hour food was free? And pretty much amounted to a chafing dish filled with lukewarm frozen ravioli, or a tray of Ritz crackers and some chunks of white-trash cheese?

Yeah, those days are over. Welcome to the new economy. While it's been pretty bad for just about all of us (definitely worse for some than others), and my sympathies are truly with struggling restaurant owners, the challenges have brought about a bonus for customers in the form of revitalized happy hours as those struggling restaurateurs try to lure us back into their restaurants.

Case in point: Origin India, where happy hour runs from 4 to 7 p.m. daily, with half-priced appetizers and specialty drinks.

What this means to you: Dinner, my friend, at a bargain price. Eat tapas-style, mixing and matching and sharing with friends, and you'll eat both sociably and well.

For example: Chicken chili fry ($9, or $4.50 at happy hour), lightly peppery, moist and tender chunks served in what appeared to be a miniature pappadum curved into a basket, with a cooling tamarind and yogurt sauce.

Lamb sheek kabob ($9, or $4.50), long rolls of seasoned ground meat, cooked on a skewer in the tandoor and served with mint and coriander sauce.

The similarly traditional vegetable samosa ($7, or $3.50), a very flaky rendition with a filling of potatoes and peas.

A portabella mushroom cap ($7.50, or $3.75), filled with a mixture of masala-spiced mashed potatoes and cheese -- comfort-food-fusion at its best.

The only one that was a bit of a puzzlement was the paneer tikka ($7.50, or $3.75), which the menu said would be "stuffed" with apricots and raisins but actually was sort of layered with them, and at any rate was -- like all of the dishes we tried -- a colorful carnival of flavors and textures.

As were the cocktails. Sweet drinks have never appealed to me, so the ginger-pomegranate martini ($10, or $5) was perfect, the pomegranate lending a decidedly tart taste, the ginger providing, as the bartender told us, a spicy note that was also astringent and refreshing.

From the list of mojitos, we tried one with strawberry and black raspberry ($10, or $5), and again it was refreshingly tart, lighter than the martini.

Service throughout was good (with the exception of a few minor communication problems), and we certainly reveled in the atmosphere. Origin India carries the spirit of British-Colonial India, a bit of soothing mystique. The bustling intersection of Paradise Road and Harmon Avenue could be miles away instead of feet.

And it doesn't get much happier than that.

Las Vegas Review-Journal reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at 383-0474 or e-mail her at hrinella@ reviewjournal.com.