Our new favorite budget Indian restaurant, Erick South specializes in dishes from southern India and offers a wide variety of multi-dish set menus, ranging in price from Y1080-1650. Curries and other dishes are all distinctively flavored, with a quality level that rivals some of the more expensive Indian shops around town.

Most set menus here come with a few small curry dishes of your choice, plus crispy papadum, basmati rice and yellow rice, some tangy lemon rasam (a spicy south Indian tomato soup), peppery sambar (a lentil-based stew), medu vada (a crisp donut made from lentils), and unsweetened yogurt. Excellent chutney-like urugai pickles are served on the side.

The spicy green chili lamb curry and the black pepper beef curry are a couple of our favorites, along with the meaty Malabar keema curry. The slightly sweet, creamy butter chicken is also very good, more complex in flavor than usual and made with tasty, tender chicken. There are also seasonal fish curries like rockfish and bonito, and special curries of the month, which are a little more expensive but come in larger portions.

Besides set curry combos, the menu also offers tempting dishes like South Indian-style deep-fried chicken, spicy Cobb Salad, and a gorgeous-looking poriyal, a warm salad of cauliflower and other vegetables. There are also biryani rice dishes, prepared in lamb, chicken and vegetable versions.

The restaurant is located inside the new Tokyo Garden Terrace complex, and is one of the more budget-friendly choices there. The decor is quite tasteful, and in addition to table seating there's a good-sized counter that's comfortable for lone diners. Take-out service is available as well. Drinks include Carlsberg on tap, a few Indian bottled beers, and big mugs of Spanish red table wine.