Indian food—in particular the meat-rich Muglai cuisine of the north—tends to be oily, some dishes glistening from a residue that leaves an unappetizing puddle in the dish.
Go to most local Indian restaurants for lunch, and you will see evidence of this in a number of dishes on the steam table. As much as anything, the excess oil turns people off of Indian food, still one of the most misunderstood cuisines on the planet.
Enter Tapan Bose, a native of Calcutta and longtime resident of the Seattle area, who has a long resume in the restaurant business. Bose is the chef-owner of our newest Indian restaurant, Mantra Masala, and he specializes in dishes that rely on vegetable purees and individual spice mixtures, in lieu of all that unhealthy oil. The result is one of the most appealing Indian menus in town.
Masala is actually the term in Indian cooking for a spice mixture, the stuff mistakenly referred to as curry. Bose’s various masalas are a far cry from the turmeric-based yellow powder that you can buy in any supermarket. His contain fresh spices like cumin, clove, coriander and ginger, and vary from dish to dish as they would in an Indian home. These masalas are a delight to the senses. You might call even them the restaurant’s mantras.
This is an attractive place done in pastel colors and decorated with Indian crafts. Next door, there is even an Indian market, Bombay Market, where you can buy Indian dishes like dal or korma, in aseptic packages that you pop into boiling water and squeeze onto steamed rice for a quick dinner, or 50-pound quantities of rice in burlap sacks.
Most Indian restaurants offer a bountiful lunch buffet, and Mantra Masala is no different. Up to now, though, the response has been lukewarm, and Bose is considering doing away with the format altogether. I hope that he does not.
The price, $8.95, is justified by the inclusion of tandoori chicken alone. The chicken, crusty and perfectly cooked at high heat in a cylindrical tandoor, or clay oven, is the best tandoori chicken in the city, and what’s more, the pieces will not turn your fingers red.
Other dishes vary on the buffet. There’s basmati rice, pakoras (lentil-battered onion fritters that taste much better cooked to order; the steam table makes them soggy) and a few vegetable dishes. One day there was a wonderful sautéed cabbage dish. On another occasion, mixed vegetables known as jalfrezi. Rounding out the buffet are chutneys like tamarind and cilantro, raita (a cooking yogurt sauce) and a daily dessert.
The à la carte menu affords interesting options. Take vegetable samosa, a triangle of fried dough stuffed with potatoes and peas, normally served in India as a roadside snack. This filling has corn, onion and other vegetables spicing up the more traditional potato mixture. The appetizer aloo tikki is also delicious. Picture potato cakes like fat latkes, topped with spicy mint, roasted cumin and chopped cilantro.
From the tandoor, choose Mantra’s Mix Grill, the tandoori chicken plus bara kabab, an amazing rack of lamb crusted with spices held in by a yogurt marinade; chicken tikka, or white meat cubes with a melt-in-the-mouth texture; and bazari chicken, like the tikka, but with an outer shell of fresh ginger and garlic.
Most of the non-tandoor meat dishes are a departure from others served around here, as well, because Bose uses such a small amount of oil in their preparation. The choices are limited to chicken, lamb or shrimp, the most exotic being Goan prawn curry, cooked in a combination of tamarind and coconut milk, without a trace of that awful yellow stuff.
I’d also recommend a biryani, or rice casserole. My lamb biryani was chock-full of baked lamb and searing hot with green chilis, the way it was ordered. One of the best vegetable dishes is dewane handi, seven vegetables and grains cooked in a homemade spinach puree. The unusual shahi paneer is cubed farmer’s cheese in cashew gravy, with mixed dried fruit, a dish native to Kashmir.
Everyone seems to like Indian breads, unless they are allergic to wheat gluten. Onion kulcha is a flatbread laced with sliced onions, while aloo paratha is a layered whole-wheat bread stuffed with diced potato and finished in the tandoor.
If you have a really adventurous palate, do what local Indians do and ask for a side dish of achar—mango, lotus root, eggplant and other vegetables in pungent brine. Indians use it as a pickle, and the taste lingers on your palate longer than a vintage Bordeaux. To drink, order a Taj Mahal lager beer from Mother India, or perhaps a mango lassi, like an Indian milkshake. And keep that mantra to yourself.
Mantra Masala
8530 Warm Springs Road. 598-3663.
Open Tuesday-Sunday, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., 5:30-9 p.m.
Suggested dishes: aloo tikki, $4.95; Mantra’s mix grill, $18.95; dewane handi, $12.95; lamb biryani, $14.95.
Photograph by Iris Dumuk