My marriage is built on a foundation of curry.

My Scottish wife and I met in Edinburgh, and since Scotland is part of the British Empire, and the British Empire colonized India, Edinburgh is steeped in Indian food. During our courting days, Mairi and I would stroll along breezy Leith Walk or the narrow, cobblestone lanes of Old Town, sampling curries at every Indian outpost we could find. Those meals were romantic, not to mention culinarily educational.

We focused on a quartet of dishes - mulligatawny soup, shrimp vindaloo, sag paneer and chicken tikka masala. That way we tracked the variation in flavors from one restaurant to the next without getting lost in the vast number of other choices found on the typical Indian menu. Not unlike a horizontal wine tasting of single grape varieties, our research came with the heady nose of cumin, coriander and cayenne.

What we discovered was a rather simple truth: great curry doesn't come from a jar. Like all quality cooking, it's built with fresh ingredients, fresh herbs and freshly ground spices. Similarly named dishes can vary wildly in execution (and spellings), but the most nuanced, vibrant curries are always made from freshly assembled ingredients.

With that in mind, we dusted off our tasting method for a visit to the Valley's newest Indian restaurant, India Place in Eagle.

Opened in May by Sudesh Jain, the former owner of Madhuban Indian Cuisine on State Street in Boise, India Place is tucked into a small commercial strip just south of downtown Eagle. A turmeric and burgundy box of a room with requisite Taj Mahal poster, it's not the coziest curry house I've visited, but on this Saturday night a belly dancer swaying to the thump of sitar infused pop and rap (yes, Indian rap) helped spice the place up.

Spicy, too, was the mulligatawny soup ($3.50). Based on cream rather than the lentil puree commonly found at most Indian restaurants, this golden soup had a deliciously complex curry flavor. It was certainly made with care, if a tad rich for my taste.

The shrimp vindaloo ($14.95), a brick red sauce surrounding large shrimp and chunks of potato, was very spicy, as is the tradition for vindaloo (although any dish can be ordered mild, medium, or hot). It was good, but didn't stand out from similar dishes I've had elsewhere.

However, the sag paneer - called palak paneer here - ($9.95) was exceptional. By either name, it's a spiced spinach dish with cubes of paneer cheese (a mild, springy white cheese that adds a nice counterpoint to spinach). Jain says he takes an hour and a half to prepare the dish, shredding the spinach rather than pureeing it to the baby food consistency offered at many restaurants. That gave ours a pleasantly toothsome texture; the accompanying combination of spices and oil added a deep, intensely earthy flavor. I'd say it's the best in town.

Also clearly made from scratch was the chicken tikka masala ($12.95). At every other local curry house it's accompanied by a thick cream sauce. The India Place version was creamless, with thin slices of green bell pepper, onion and bits of fresh herb. I found it quite good and appreciated the intact vegetables and light touch. Mairi, though, said she prefers the more traditional masala sauces we've had at Boise's Madhuban, Taj Mahal, or Bombay Grill.

For me, taste matters more than tradition. And that's why I skipped our tightly focused tasting method on a second visit, diving into everything on the India Place Sunday afternoon buffet ($7.99/kids eat free). All of it was good, if not piping hot (a perennial buffet problem). I particularly liked the Bombay aloo with its just-cooked vegetables and the chana masala with chickpeas in garlic sauce. Tender naan bread and saffron basmati rice helped sop up every drop.

Now, I confess I haven't eaten Indian food at its source, but I've relished it in much of what I'll call the curry diaspora: New York, Los Angeles, Australia, Indonesia and even Saudi Arabia. I found my spicy holy grail of Indian food in Singapore at a joint simply and accurately called "Fish Head Curry Restaurant."

None of the Valley's handful of Indian eateries match that memory - or the range of flavors and cooking styles I've found elsewhere - but India Place does bring another worthwhile choice to the local curry scene and adds a bit more spice to Eagle's growing array of restaurants.

Guy Hand's "Edible Idaho" show can be heard on NPR News 91.5. Email him at guyhand@mac.com.