Once upon a time, nouvelle cuisine was the province of French restaurants offering lighter versions of traditional dishes. Today, the term nouvelle cuisine could also be applied to some of the Indian dishes offered at Mantra on Route 4 in Paramus.
General manager Pradeep Singh said that when he and Chef Rajesh Thakur took over from the original, French-trained Indian chef, they decided to change the menu back toward more traditional Indian food but with a lighter touch.
"I'm not trying to turn the menu the whole way around," he said. "I'm trying to provide authentic Indian dishes."
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Like many of Bergen County's best restaurants, Mantra is in a strip mall, but rather than the dark interior offered by so many of them, Mantra is light and airy, with clever, nearly opaque designs on the floor-to-ceiling windows that shield you from the parking lot.
The interior dining room is spacious with beautifully decorated walls opposite the windows. It is a much nicer dining space than the restaurant's red-hued Nirvana lounge where you can have a drink and appetizers while awaiting the rest of your party. Nirvana is a classy bar, but probably more welcome on a cold winter night than a late summer evening.
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A wall with a fireplace separates the two and took a large chunk out of the $2.5 million Singh said it took to renovate the space.
Once we were seated in the dining room, the service was quick and attentive, giving my sometimes impatient partner no chance to complain about anything. To start, we enjoyed the chef's complimentary hors d'oeuvre (amuse-bouche if you want to get technical). It was a dal chaat with black lentils, kidney beans with a tamarind sauce.
The lobster chaat, which earned rave reviews from a New York Times critic a couple of years ago is still on the menu. As a lobster lover, there was no way I was going to miss that and, for the most part, it lived up to its billing.
A thinly shaved strip of cucumber is wrapped around a salad of lobster, peppers and onions topped with baby greens and balsamic vinaigrette. But at $16, it was pricey for a small appetizer.
At half the price, my partner got a more substantial plate of corn fritters made with, in addition to corn, peppers and onions. They came with a creamy yogurt dip. There were enough of them that we could easily have split it and they were so good you forgot about how many calories each one must have.
For main courses we went traditional. My partner had the tandoori chicken, which was moist and flavorful. I had murgh tikka, chicken cut into chunks, then marinated in yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, ginger, cumin, cardamom, turmeric, cayenne pepper and salt before being threaded onto skewers and grilled.
This dish was very flavorful but a bit on the dry side. We also had an order of naan bread, which was OK, but not outstanding.
For dessert, we decided to split Mantra's version of rice pudding. The rice was hard –we think it was basmati—and delivered in a soupy and sweet pudding topped with shaved bits of pistachio nuts. We liked the pistachio flavor but not the texture of the pudding, perhaps because we are used to this dish being thicker and creamier.
Singh estimated that 80 percent of his customers are regulars though since the recession began, many don't come as often. One remedy is Mantra's $9.95 lunch buffet. "If they come for lunch and enjoy the food, they'll come for dinner and bring the family," Singh said.
We visited on a Tuesday night, not the most popular night for dining out in Bergen County, and Mantra had a respectable crowd.
Singh and Thakur are both from Mumbai but got to know each other in Manhattan, where both worked in well-known restaurants. Now they hope to open a Manhattan version of Paramus' Mantra.
"We are looking at locations," said Singh, who got a degree in hotel management in Mumbai, earned his masters in Hong Kong and worked in London before coming to the U.S.
Menu changes are coming up this fall, including a sea bass wrapped in banana leaves.
"This is very authentic from India," Singh said. And special events are being planned, including a "Bollywood Night."
That sounds like fun, but the bottom line is that you can have top quality light or heavier fare at prices ranging from $14 to $21 for an entrée. The exception: the lamb chops are $30.
Food: Good
Service: Excellent
Entrée Price Range: $14 - $30
Atmosphere: Friendly, High chairs available
Credit Cards Accepted
OpenTable: Yes
