When cooking authority and longtime New Yorker Madhur Jaffrey published her first cookbook, An Invitation to Indian Cooking, in 1973 (she has since published more than a dozen), she lamented New York’s lack of good Indian restaurants. “Instead of specializing in food from a particular state or district, [restaurants] serve a generalized Indian food from no specific area whatsoever,” she wrote.

New York’s Indian restaurants have since blossomed. Indian specialties from almost any region of the subcontinent are available to New Yorkers, who have responded enthusiastically to the vegetarian fare of Hyderabad, the seafood dishes of Kerala, and the vindaloo cooking of Goa. At Chola, the menu includes dishes that originated in Calcutta’s Jewish quarter-bamia koota (lamb with okra), and chicken makmura prepared in a sauce with nuts and raisins. The Mangalorean fish curry at Tikka is the chef’s own mother’s recipe, flavored with coconut, tamarind, cumin, red and green chilies, curry leaves, and mustard. Salaam Bombay’s ringna batata nu shaak (eggplant and potatoes cooked in a sweet and sour sauce) is a Gujarati specialty.

“There was a cry for authentic Indian food, and New York’s Indian restaurants have much improved. It has happened very slowly, but we’re seeing authentic Indian food, we’re seeing regional Indian food, we’re seeing Indian fusion for the first time,” Ms. Jaffrey now says, and points to a vitality in the cuisines of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan as immigration from those areas has increased.

In Queens, a handful of restuarants in Jackson Heights’ “Little India” boast Pakistani specialities along with Indian and Bangladeshi (and even halal Chinese). But Tabaq 74 serves “only 100 % Pakistani food,” says owner Ijaz Zaman. He serves katakat meats, such as chicken or beef vrains, cookied in the tawa (a large, rounded cast-iron skillet) and named after the “katakat” sounds of cooking utensils against the metal pan. The chapli kabab khyberi, patties of ground beef fried “fronteir style” with onion, scallions, cilantro, and a dash of chilies, peppercorns, and whole coriander seeds, are probably the best “Pakistani burgers” in New York.

IWhat distinguishes Pakistani cuisine from Indian? It’s the spicing, according to Mr. Zaman, who is from Lahore in northeast Pakistan. “Just enough is used to bring out the flavor of the food. Beef should taste like beef. Chicken should taste like chicken. And lamb should taste like lamb.”