Q: The New York Times > Dining & Wine > Diner's Journal: Bombay Talkie

have tasted the bitterness of unrequited love. It left me dizzy. Dazed. And, of course, hungry for some naan and a few dosas, which was its primary purpose.

"Unrequited love" is the predictably precious name of one of the obligatorily presented specialty drinks at Bombay Talkie, a new restaurant in Chelsea that pays as much attention to semantic and stylistic flourishes as it does to the spicing of its food, which could stand to be livelier.

Bombay Talkie nonetheless has its charms, numerous and apparent from the moment you walk in the door. The lighting is soft. The furniture is sleek. An enormous painted mural that covers one wall draws your eye. It shows people playing music and dancing and is meant, like so much else about the restaurant, to evoke Bollywood movies, also known as - you guessed it - Bombay talkies.

Scenes from those movies flicker across a television screen above the bar, as do Indian music videos. As my friends and I watched one, a server made certain to clue us in to the scandalous fact that a model was lip-synching to the voice of a less comely - and thus invisible - singer.

The menu plays with the conceit of Indian street food, and so appetizers are listed as "street bites." Entrees appear under the heading "from the roadside." Side dishes are from, well, the "curbside."

Driving into them was a pleasant but uneventful collision. We tried the lamb and chicken dosas, both respectable. Cubes of chicken that had been cooked in a tandoor were tender. Scotch eggs, made with a casing of lamb instead of pork, were accompanied by a rose water cashew sauce that tasted like an especially subtle curry. An amalgam of cumin, coriander, turmeric and cloves enlivened sautéed shrimp.

The side dishes that we sampled - including garbanzo beans in a ginger-garlic paste, buttered lentils and a mash of potatoes and cauliflower with cumin and chili peppers - were forgettable. And in being so somnolent, they helped us articulate our overarching qualm with all of the food. It needed more kick, more punch.

Bombay Talkie is in many ways a neighborhood joint in an especially pretty dress, designed by Thomas Juul-Hansen. It plans in the near future to offer delivery to buildings nearby and to serve lunch. On Fridays and Saturdays, the kitchen stays open until 11:30 p.m.

The organization of the menu makes clear that it's O.K. just to nibble. Or to sip. Various lassis are printed near the limited dessert options, and then of course there are the cocktails, which, I'm told, take their names from Bollywood movies. Their recipes, I would guess, are a more local invention.

What are the temperature, tinge and taste of "unrequited love"? It is cold but not frigid, transparent but vaguely green, and extremely potent, thanks to modest measures of lime juice and saffron syrup in a sea of Bombay Sapphire gin.

I had to approach it haltingly, because it threatened to overwhelm me. I don't think I could handle requited love.

Bombay Talkie, 189 Ninth Avenue, at 21st Street, Chelsea; (212) 242-1900. Appetizers, $5 to $8. Entrees, $11.

A: Chelsea's new Indian restaurant pays the same amount of attention to semantic and stylistic flourishes as it does to the spicing of its food, which could stand to be livelier.


Q: Cost of Government Continues to Grow and Shows No Sign of Stopping

Every year, Americans for Tax Reform Foundation calculates how many days the average American must work to earn enough income to pay off the regulatory and spending burdens at the local, state and federal levels of government. The findings, released in the Cost of Government Day report, have become more disheartening with each passing year of the Obama Administration. In 2011, Americans must work until August 12 to pay off the full costs of government. While most taxpayers may consider their government debt paid when they file taxes each April, the true costs of government extract a far greater toll from the working public.

Federal spending plays a huge role in the Cost of Government Day (COGD), with Americans toiling 104 days this year just to pay for federal outlays. The creeping regulatory burden, however, presents a much more larger threat to American prosperity and portends a much later COGD . While the costs to sustain the regulatory regime continue to grow, just as perilous is the economic damage caused by an onerous and capricious regulatory state.

Obamacare and the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory bill, hallmarks of the administration’s first few years, will have explosive costs, the impacts of which cannot even be quantified in the bills’ initial stages. This is because in both of the bills Congress punted most of the details to be sorted out by bureaucrats; Obamacare requires over 40 different rulemakings before it will be fully fleshed out while Dodd-Frank needs 500 different clarifications before it can be implemented in its entirety. This, combined with the economic uncertainty spurred by such ambiguous lawmaking, augurs little hope for the economic “recovery” the Administration assures us is forthcoming.

The ability to project the full weight of regulatory impact is imperfect. The deadweight loss of goods, jobs and income foregone due to heavy regulation is unquantifiable in many cases. However, the government spending done on regulations does provide a fair barometer of regulators’ activity.

One estimate shows that a five percent reduction in regulator budgets would increase GDP by $376 billion and expand employment by 6.2 million jobs over five years. Conversely, for the 2011 $2.95 billon regulator budget increase, the economy loses 6.2 million jobs over five years. This suggests the regulatory burden plays a much larger role in economic productivity than is normally assumed, especially when a quick look-back shows that regulators’ budgets have grown by 72.5 percent over the past decade.

Growth in the regulatory burden presents an even more harrowing picture when measured against a shrinking economy. Indeed, unable to recognize the chokehold its big government agenda has on the economy, the government finds itself in the uncomfortable position of continually lowering its estimated economic growth for previous quarters. This summer, the first quarter estimate of 1.3 percent growth was retrospectively dropped to a meager .4 percent.

Nonetheless, the President’s budget relies on extremely unrealistic expectations for growth. His spending blueprint, which permanently increases spending to two percent higher than the historical average, is premised on a rate of growth averaging 4.71 percent over the next decade. Assuming more realistic growth constrained by historical averages (which is still far below recent levels), spending would actually rise to nearly 28 percent of GDP.

To put this in perspective for 2011, the COGD estimate is based on the optimistic calendar year projection of 3.7 percent growth. The lackluster economic growth witnessed in the first half of the year means that in reality, a much larger portion of the year is consumed by government than the report is able to grasp without major extrapolations.

Economic growth will continue to stagnate as long as the looming regulatory threats remain, both in the form of coming rulemakings for incomplete legislation and aggressive executive overreach that has become commonplace in the Obama Administration. The economic growth foregone will only be one bite of this sour apple; businesses will not expand while the uncertain regulatory threat exists. Employers will not hire, consumers will be paralyzed and the stalled economic recovery will become the new normal. With the growing regulatory regime, later Cost of Government Days will be unavoidable absent serious and long-lasting reform.

Mattie Duppler Corrao is Government Affairs Manager for Americans for Tax Reform and the Executive Director of its Center for Fiscal Accountability.

A:

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Every year, Americans for Tax Reform Foundation calculates how many days the average American must work to earn enough income to pay off the regulatory and spending burdens at the local, state and federal levels of government. The findings, released in the Cost of Government Day report, have become more disheartening with each passing year of the Obama Administration.