Liver and onions
Chicken fingers and french fries
Strange hotel curry
ren
One recurring theme keeps coming up after Ren and I finish reviewing any restaurant. Invariably, after chowing down on our favorite dishes, one of us will get a sudden urge to do one of the following activities:
a) go swimming
b) rent a car
c) have a nap in a king size bed
d) host a business meeting
e) attend a wedding
f) go broke at the VLTs
g) order SpectroVision porn
h) get free dry cleaning Monday – Friday.
Unfortunately we haven’t found a curry house that offers any of these services in-house. That was, until we discovered Mantra which is conveniently located at the Inn on Crowchild across from Dalhousie Station. The IOC (not to be confused with the International Olympic Committee) isn’t so much an “inn” per se, as it is a 57 room hotel bizarrely built on the edge of Varsity, in the middle of suburbia. It’s an odd location for a hotel but it’s been there for a long time. (matt)
You can tell our ambivalence to this year's Stanley Cup Final when matty and I head out for curry right at the start of what ended up being the last game. You know it's gonna be a bad scene when the fans of the team that finished 25th overall are cheering harder for one of the teams to lose than either of the competing teams' fans are about them winning. (ren)
Not unlike so many of our adventures, the dining room was empty. Whenever this happens, I feel like they should just close the restaurant to any other patrons and bring out 6 waiters to wait on us hand and foot, bringing us dish after dish to critique. It never happens and I have to awake from my dream like trance before ordering. (matt)
Awaking me from the trance on this day was the Leader of the Zealots from the Chutney review. This guy gets around. First he was spotted doing the graveyard shift at Mac’s in Tuscany, then at Chutney, and now, running the IOC! I think he pretty much works at every brown-dominated job in Calgary. If I see him driving a cab, I won’t be at all surprised. He asked us if we wanted to start with drinks. Ren and Ang went with water. I ordered a mango lassi, which we later found out isn’t even on the menu. No worries though, as he acted as if it was on the menu and preceded to compound a lassi from memory in the kitchen. It was bizarrely served in a brandy snifter. Nothing says sophistication like fruit flavored yogurt drinks. (matt)
The décor is typical holiday inn lounge. Cheap carpet, and boring prints of avacados and lemons are the flavour of the day. There were a couple indian-style wall hangings and a large statue of a hindu god spaced relatively evenly around the room but overall it just seemed like they weren't going to be here very long. Kinda gave the same vibe you get when someone decorates the local community centre up for a wedding....you've got your basketball hoops, lines on the floor for b-ball, volley ball, badminton, indoor soccer and about 10 other games that no-one knows how to play but they have to have the lines there just in case someone comes along wanting to play. And then you have 2 hearts and some pink ribbon on the wall and its supposed to balance out. Right.... (ren)
The menu is designed for all patrons of the hotel. Meaning even if you’re a total cultural “git” and only eat cheeseburgers, you can be satisfied. If you enjoy overpaying for an item that costs 20 cents to make, you can order pasta. If you are a snot-nosed brat who is more interested in Pokemon than PakoraMan, then you can order off the kids menu. The menu apparently also caters to homeless people since on Wednesday nights, the special is Liver and Onions. (matt)
Personally I really like liver. But I'm not currently homeless. Speaking of pasta, ang got the butter chicken which tasted more like Chef Boy-R-Dee than it probably is supposed to. I was pleasantly surprised with my shahi paneer since quite often they use the same basic sauce....however mine was relatively creamy and yummy while ang's could have been Beef-a-Roni. Mmmm. Matt had CTM for the second review in a row. Its incredible how hard it is to find chicken tikka masala in this town....it's the number one curry in england but its not even on the menu at a lot of places here. (ren)
The curry bowls, of which there are about 12, all come with basmati rice and a pappadum. Ren ordered a shahi paneer dish. I called Chicken Tikka Masala while Ang was left to fester with butter chicken. Mine was clearly the best dish. Lots of red peppers, some zip but not insane. Ren enjoyed his dish but Ang’s butter chicken was much too tomatoey and even she agreed it wasn’t a proper murgh makhani. (matt)
I can't say I was too impressed with the pappadum side rather than a naan. It wasn't horrible and was kinda fun to dip in my sauce....but its just not the same. Also its a lot harder to judge the difference between a good pappadum and a bad one. Its much easier to tell a good Barbapapa from an evil one. (mostly because they're all good .... and bizare). (ren)
While Captain Zealot may be a hard worker, he is no mathematician. Our bill was off (in our favour) by about $12. We just left an extremely large tip as the appropriate difference. I’m sure he thinks we’re very generous leaving a 40% gratuity. (matt)
I think we were pleasantly surprised by our experience at Mantra. My dish was a solid 8/10. That being said Ang’s meal was probably a 5. Let’s do the math. Mantra’s score is as follows:
Awaking me from the trance on this day was the Leader of the Zealots from the Chutney review. This guy gets around. First he was spotted doing the graveyard shift at Mac’s in Tuscany, then at Chutney, and now, running the IOC! I think he pretty much works at every brown-dominated job in Calgary. If I see him driving a cab, I won’t be at all surprised. He asked us if we wanted to start with drinks. Ren and Ang went with water. I ordered a mango lassi, which we later found out isn’t even on the menu. No worries though, as he acted as if it was on the menu and preceded to compound a lassi from memory in the kitchen. It was bizarrely served in a brandy snifter. Nothing says sophistication like fruit flavored yogurt drinks. (matt)
