Very delicious Indian food!! Great prices! I had a feast!
My friends all think that I have really taste and choices in restaurants. So happy to hear this, since I love to host and/arrange get-together. This place was so close to getting a 5* review from me and my friends.
Location: 4.5/5
I love Shops at Don Mills! Amble parking space by the theatre. The shopping area is always decorated no matter what season it is. Great place to walk around with some fresh air in-between stores. It is just so beautiful here. I like many of the stores here, too, and Mantra is no exception! Even though, it was right across the Bier Markt, it still was not the easiest to find, because instead of their front sigh reading Mantra, it read ATA.
Decor/Ambience: 4.5/5
It is pretty cozy with a bar front and centre in the very middle. The high ceiling and wooden decor made the restaurant appear a bit bigger. I think this place can seat about 50-60 people at the lounge and another 15 people or so at the bar at full capacity. We were so lucky to even be able to book a table for 6 on the day off, because it was already so booked. When we arrived, it was indeed packed to the brim, except for the very table that they reserved for us. Lucky! Other places I went to this past week complaint about being too full, when clearly they had like 4/5 empty tables for the entire durations that I was there for... this place was legit popular and I can see why!
Food quality: 4.5/5
So delicious. Perfect amount of spice and flavours! Everyone in my group cleaned every morsel of food, naan, and sauce that they gave us. It was that good.
Mind you, apparently my two East Indian friends both thought that it could be even more spicier and bolder in flavours to truly be authentic, but we all agreed that if they did so, it would definitely not be as popular and mostly appear to those that can handle higher level of heat or spice. With this said, everything pescegan food item that I had was scrumptious!! Like oh my, there were an expected large variety of vegetarian and vegan choices for me, so I can see myself coming here over and over again. Any and every item on their menu was made with care and up to standard, not just their mains.
I particular enjoyed their aloo ghobli, which is a cauliflower dish, that a lot of crunch to it. Their kale pomegranate salad was totally sizeable! Their sun-dried tomato and basil naan could have had a richer flavour, but it was soft and not chewy at all.
Now, this is where I minus a star in their rating. My friend chose their mushroom Marsala, which was beyond her level of heat, so she had a bite, nearly cried, and decided to share the entire dish with all of us. Everyone else had a bite, while I ate more than half of it myself and I gave what I had left of my salad to her, because it was not spicy at all. However, she could only eat half of my kale pomegranate salad, because it was pure leaf and seeds.
I, personally, had to constantly wipe sweat off of my forehead, because the heat piled up on me.
I think it was mostly at the right spicy level for all of their items and hence why they are quite popular with good reasons. It is not easy controlling spicy levels without it either being too hot or not hot enough for different patrons
Service: 4.5/5
Above average. They gave us a small plate for utensils and a bigger plate to eat out food from, especially if sharing, but because the tables aren't that big, it took up too much space when the food all came to the table. They served us quite fast as our entire dinner service only lasted slightly more than an hour.
My Indian friends are from the eastern side and they noticed that one of the waiters was from Bengali, so they spoke in Bengalis to him. It was lovely to see such a warm, friendly exchange between 'neighbouring' strangers.
The staff frequented our table quite often and when the naan was served, she pointed out to us, that each basket had two servings of naan that we ordered, in order to save room on the table.
The menu was missing pepper labelling to mark the level of spiciness for all of their food items. If they had such labelling, my friend would never have had ordered her original mushroom dish and instead opted for my salad or something else instead. She had to personally point this out to one of the managers.
Value: 4.5/5
I was very full with every that I had ordered, but it would have been better if naan or rice was included as sides to every mains, instead of them being separately charged for. For me, it was no big deal, but for some of my friends, they ended up having to order a rice just to share their mains with, because they needed something to eat all the sauce with. This would help keep patrons coming back for sure, but since I came here with the idea of ordering smaller appetizers to blend and share with friends to begin with, this was not a concern of mine. read more