After abruptly quitting his job as an ambitious sous-chef in a high end French restaurant in Manhattan, Samir (Mandvi) finds himself back at his parent’s modest home in the “Little India” part of Queens. He tells everyone that he is going to Paris to apprentice with a famous chef but ends up having to cook Indian food at his family’s restaurant when his father falls ill. Samir must bring the place back to life except that he can’t cook Indian food.

Enter an eccentric and charismatic Indian cab driver and chef named Akbar (played by Indian film star Naseeruddin Shah) who brags about having once prepared meals for Indira Gandhi to help Samir out. Together they go shopping and when Akbar picks up cumin and calls it a “saucy wrench” and compares coriander seed to a “young girl walking in a lemon grove by the ocean to see what the future holds,” Samir’s education in Indian cooking is about to begin.

Akbar acting as a mentor urges his protégé to cook not so much from the brain but from the heart and below. (“The recipe is the template, what counts is the interpretation.”) The cameos made by some wonderful Indian dishes are both welcome and mouth watering.

If you enjoyed such films as “Big Night” and “Babette’s Feast,” you will love “Today’s Special” and find yourself going back for seconds. As an extra added treat there is a recipe for Mushroom Bhaaji located in the front jacket of the DVD. Make it. You’ll like it. “Trust me.” This film is currently available at the Palisades library.