For a certain subsection of the Pittsburgh population, a momentous merger occurred sometime around the beginning of November.

Allegheny County and the city of Pittsburgh, you ask? No, just a pipe dream. The Center and Monaca school districts? Still tying up loose ends.

Bayleaf is at 416 Semple St., Oakland. Call 412-605-0400.

Rather, the families that run the superb South Indian restaurant Udipi in Monroeville and the Kashmiri food truck in Oakland decided to join forces on a new Indian restaurant on Semple Street.

The result, Bayleaf Indian Cuisine, isn't exactly upscale -- plastic silverware sits on the table in red soft drink cups, for example -- but the restaurant's interior is comfortable and pleasant, with walls painted in bright, Indian flag shades of green and orange, and dark wooden tables and chairs.

If that decoration isn't enough, Bollywood videos run continuously on a large flat-screen television near the restaurant's bar area.

Munch and Dear One of Munch (DOOM) arrived early, around 6 p.m. on Saturday night, and found themselves the only ones in the restaurant. Munch was trying to eat in time for a 7:40 p.m. show of "Slumdog Millionaire," realizing only halfway through dinner that Munch had accidentally planned a Saturday Spectacular on the Indian Subcontinent.

And spectacular it was.

Munch and DOOM started with what is perhaps the second-best deal in all of Pittsburgh -- two softball-sized samosas for $1.99 served with tamarind and cilantro sauces. Munch doesn't even particularly like cilantro, but you sure wouldn't know it based on the way Munch was shoveling it on with a plastic spoon.

Munch liked the samosa so much, in fact, that when an awkward stab of the plastic silverware knife resulted in part of the samosa flying to the floor, Munch immediately began pondering the application of the 10-second rule to a carpeted restaurant.

Munch eventually compromised by scraping off and eating the top part of the samosa, convinced through some wishful thinking that it had never touched the floor.

Munch washed the samosa down with DOOM's mango lassi ($2) -- the sweetness of the mango perfectly balancing the slightly sour yogurt.

There are two menus at Bayleaf -- one a reprint of the vegetarian menu from Udipi and one a more meat-centered menu from the folks at Kashmiri.

Munch and DOOM ordered from both, first chowing an order of moist Tandoori chicken served on a sizzling platter.

Munch then tackled a masala dosai ($5.75), a giant crispy pancake filled with potato and onion, served with a thin and spicy sambal sauce and a chunky and creamy coconut chutney.

Munch and DOOM were so full by that point that they barely dented the earthy and delicious channa palak (chickpea and spinach curry, $6.99) -- but never fear, it served as excellent leftovers the next day.

The evening's only moment of regret came when DOOM visited the bathroom. Don't worry, gentle reader, it was not a foreshadowing of the outhouse scene that Munch would later witness in "Slumdog Millionaire." In fact, Munch had no complaints about the bathroom's cleanliness.

Rather, it was that on the way back, DOOM spied the all-you-can-eat buffet, available all day for $5.99. The buffet options seemed endless -- at least 15 different dishes, and Munch looked wistfully at what Munch hadn't been able to sample. Golly gee, Munch thought, this might be the best deal in Pittsburgh.

As Munch prepared to leave, the restaurant started to fill with Indian-accented college students, all smartly visiting the buffet. And just as it is in the movies, all was right with the world.