My follow-up review for this restaurant. Read my previous review for this restaurant here

Update 08/17:
Maybe I’ll feel differently if I pay for a meal here, but Mantra is my new hotness in Palo Alto. The dishes I have eaten and tried so far have been some of the most enjoyable I’ve had in the area in a while and there are a bunch that I’m really looking forward to trying on my next visit.

I came here again with work today and got the lamb chops, which were bursting with all the juicy saucy flavors of the lamb shank. Its pricey, but you get a lot of lamb as well as a couple of sides mixed in. The meat is very soft but charred along the bone and it was enjoyable enough that I resorted to breaking it apart with my hands to get every piece. The sauce tasted like a wine reduction (not sure if it was) and deserved to be sopped up with naan. It also had a polenta base that was creamy and just as enjoyable. The meat sat on top of a flaky phyllo biscuit with a diced mushroom sauce and the whole thing was accompanied by asparus and carrots wrapped in prosciutto. Its like they worry that you won’t love the lamb so they insecurely need to make four more things on your plate awesome just in case. I was very happy with all five.

I tried the flank steak and was not as impressed but only had one bite. Next time I’m going to try the waiter recommended sea bass. Three cheers for expensed lunches.

There are a few restaurants that I would recommend highly, with the caveat its covered by an expense account. Mantra is definitely one of them. It has a wide array of very unexpected options many of which are very tasty, but its not as consistently great as its prices are high.

While my recent expensed lunch at Mantra had a lot of very tasty memories and was more enjoyable that most meals I’ve had recently, it wasn’t worth the tab and I’m sure I would have been more critical of the dishes I tried if it was on me.

I’d been here about a year earlier and it seemed to be more unsure of whether it was expensive so-so Indian turned upscale or upscale dining with an Indian flare. While there were some interesting dishes that I don’t remember vividly, I do remember feeling like neither goal was accomplished nearly well enough for the price. I’ve read they have been under new management since, so that probably accounts for the difference in my experiences.

This time, I felt like the menu was much more interesting, that they had decided to focus more on unique dishes whether or not they seemed Indian enough. But they still charged as much as they could get away with in downtown PA. My entree, the “coke” au vin ($26) was pretty great all around. It was a tender lamb shank with a good amount of meat and pretty fatty (not as soft as I’ve had, but not nearly as dry and stringy as many lamb shanks I’ve tried). Its name is a play on coq au vin, except this one includes coke in a wine reduction sauce instead of chicken in wine. The sauce was really tasty and luckily didn’t remind me of Coke, though the white buttery cream sauce that it was mixed with reminds you of how much butter they probably used to achieve something so tasty. It came with a side of crostini with a berry sauce for some reason. It was tasty, though seemed a strange addition.

Our table got an array of appetizers of varying appeal. The Paneer Cuboid ($9) was a light chunk of paneer cheese with a sweet edge and slightly fried. The cheese was a little too much like tofu, but the bites striped with a slightly sweet ribbon were very tasty. The
Shrimp “Vinhaleaux” ($12 for 3) were very meaty, almost like chicken. They were marinated in chili and cinnamon and tasted better than the average shrimp, but definitely not worth four dollars each. We got another dish that included two chicken sausages on a tasty BBQ-like sauce along with two small spheres of paneer wrapped in a tough wheaty dough. Those weren’t that enjoyable though they were over two very enjoyable fruit sauces. The sauteed chicken look like the typical red spiced chicken you might get at many north Indian restaurants, though the meat and spicing was much better. But still, not nearly as good as the lamb dish.

If you’re looking to explore a menu filled with entirely unique combinations and don’t might spending too much for it, check out Mantra. But if you are looking for great food that is worth its price, look elsewhere.

Came here yesterday for the “Dine Downtown Palo Alto Mondays” prix fixe. The decor is very nice, especially the wall waterfall fountain.
Mantra serves “Californian cuisine with Indian influences”, and it’s good… just not worth $20+ per dish. You can get much better Indian food for much cheaper, though as for Californian… I can’t think of any good Californian places in the area.

Mantra’s food is interesting, but overpriced.