So my excuse for reposting old stale stuff is that
Weller's recent recipe choice brought back a wash
of memories, which I relived with pleasure, even to
the point of being able to conjure up the taste
memories of some of the dishes. Other excuse is that
I originally posted these in a now-dead aspiring
travelers' BBS called moremiles.org, which lost its
life partially owing to its treading on the tail of
Lufthansa, whose alternate US site was at the time
moremiles.com, also now defunct. Anyway.

Mantra, 52 Temple Place, Boston.

It was my turn to treat, so after our meeting Nicholas
steered me and the committee chair to the Four Seasons,
where a drink apiece came to $36, and then took pity
on this poor musician and pointed us (minus the chair,
who thankfully had many miles to go before etc. etc.)
to Limbo, a well-reputed and not so grossly overpriced
place, but it was closed, but lo and behold here we
were directly across the street at Mantra, probably the
richest address in town. But I was hungry and truth to
tell not completely destitute, so I accepted this
choice in reasonably good grace. Good thing I did, as
the meal was pretty memorable.

One starts with the nice in-house-baked breads - I had
the rosemary naan, which is delicate (although not warm)
and tasting only fugitively of the herb in question and
went nicely with the sweet butter and coriander-cashew
chutney that are provided. Other choices include a
potato roll, a sourdough roll, and something brown (I
had no interest in finding out).

Once they determined that we were serious about eating,
they brought some interesting amuses -

For Nicholas, squab breast in a coriander cream sauce,
quite elegant if not as rare as I like my game;

for me, a wild mushroom fritter served tepid (I think
a mistake) tied neatly with scallion, slightly curried
and very savory.

And then on to the starters.

I had a smallish slice of foie gras, properly rare
although almost impossibly black-crusted on the outside,
strewn with Indian-spiced crisped rice and served on a
bed of artichoke chips; quite nice as one might expect
for a $19.50 appetizer. With this I had the Elderton
late-harvest Semillon '00, richly fruity, only slightly
botrytized, huge finish.

Nicholas had Pacific oysters warmed with cream, topped
with beluga - the oysters were quite good, lacking the
cloying cucumbery quality I am bored by in many such;
the caviar was pretty good, although it had been warmed
and as such was kind of mushy. He ordered what must be
the perfect wine for such a dish, the Vina Albarino Pazo
San Mauro 00, all grapefruit and limes, very refreshing
but very suave.

A hot pink, too sweet basil sorbet came next; the timing
was perfect, as I was dying to get the taste of the
Elderton (attractive though it had been) out of my mouth.

My main course was rack of lamb, six chops, very rare
as ordered over sweet-spiced eggplant puree, garnished
with roast potatoes and a fresh pea sauce - superb.

Nicholas's veal tenderloin with truffle sauce was not
quite as well executed, the meat done to medium well
(the waiter had promised medium-rare) and the sauce,
although truffly enough, rather too sweet.

The Larrikin Shiraz (Barossa) 99 accompanied nicely -
deep, minty, berryful, put me in mind of the Stonewell
that I'd had last fall, not a big surprise as the
guy running the outfit, as I understand, is the nephew
of the guy running the Stonewell, and the grapes are
from the same neighborhood.

Nicholas had the espresso chocolate torte, fenugreek
ice cream, which looked beautiful and is reported to
have been as advertised; I still had a third of a
bottle of Shiraz and so instead of dessert had the
Tandoori sirloin appetizer, rare, topped with fried
potato strings (more Indian seasonings) and sided by
a tart daikon salad of which I ate little (health of
wine is more important than health of me); excellent.

Anyhow they came out with a plate of mignardises
before the bill: a pecan square, some guava paste, a
chocolate truffle, and a little black/white chocolate
cookie that was so rich I decided to do an experiment
and lit it, the result being that it burned just like
a candle. And then, horror of horrors, the damage ...
much more than I generally care to spend on dinner (my
trip to Spokane next month, airfare plus hotel, comes
to less than this outing, with a few bucks left over
for hamburgers and beers), but certainly worth it
for one of the top culinary experiences of the year.

And lo and behold, it turns out that Mantra is in the
Mileage Plus Dining plan, so I am ten percent of the
way to yet another first-class trip.
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