Fair enough! Didn’t mean to be pedantic. Was just curious since I mostly hear the “I don’t eat meat, but I eat fish.” Thanks for obliging.
Also, fun fact that apparently the archaic definition of “meat” means “food of any kind,” so next time your waiter asks if there’s anything you won’t eat, better just be safe and list off every mammal and bird in existence (kiddinggg)
Not trying to correct you - just saying my perspective. Don’t recall saying you were wrong. Or did I?
When I was vegan for years, I never mentioned the v-word. I ordered vegetarian food and would ask them to hold the cheese. Vegetarians love cheese in EVERYTHING.
Guilty as charged. I do love cheese.
That’s fine, but will you stop with the quinoa already? Please? 
Tried the tandoori chicken at Mayura and agree it’s quite delicious! Tender, juicy, and very smokey. I liked it better than the tandoori chicken at Taj Tandoori, though the spicy Taj Pathani chicken is a closer call.
To clarify, have you actually confirmed Mayura uses charcoal or did you infer this based on the taste? I feel almost silly asking this of someone so knowledgeable about meat. But the smoke flavor was really strong – moreso than smoked chickens I’ve tried – even though the restaurant itself does not smell smokey. I found myself wondering if they artificially enhanced it the way some Indian places do.
Delicious either way, though!
Yes. And their dosa/sambar. Just went for their Diwali feast on Saturday with a big group. So good. Curry goat stood out this time.
Yes, I’m quite chummy with the owners and flat out asked them one day.
Thanks for the confirmation! As I say, I felt almost silly asking you of all people lol.
I’m surprised there’s no reference to the charcoal tandoor online when it clearly makes a big difference in taste. Next time you see the owners, you should suggest they publicize the fact they’re using one. I’ll bet it would be a great selling point.
PS: Can you list some of the other places around town using charcoal tandoors? I’m so curious to try them now.
i’m hardly any expert, feel free to ask me anything… proof: i dont know even 1 other place that has charcoal in a tandoor
Yes, their dosas with sambar are great. I miss the Mayura Special, which was a delicious carb fest that had a dosa, idly, vada, and sambar. I rue the day it was taken off their menu…
I bet their Diwali feast was wonderful. I’ll recommend the goat curry to my husband, who’s a carnivore.
Per J Gold, i’m about to start ordering things off the menu. Only done that maybe 4 times.
“Los Angeles is home to a vast Indian community, and from Northridge to Artesia to Beverly Hills, you are rarely more than a few minutes’ drive from decent Indian food. So why do we end up so often at Mayura? Possibly because the restaurant, just a block from the studios in Culver City, is the only place in the Los Angeles area to specialize in the complex, largely vegetarian cooking of Kerala, and we are partial to the soft buttery smack of the cashew rice called venpongal, think the fermented-rice capsules called appam can be even more delicious with a curry than roti, kind of dig the baroque, cheesy variations on utthapam, and admire the restaurant’s maximum-coconut version of the vegetable stew avial. The dosas are pretty great too; the lunch buffets perhaps less so. Mayura has a separate kitchen preparing halal meat dishes in the north Indian mode, so if you’re craving tandoori chicken or Pakistani-style nehari instead of vada you’ll be fine.”
now that looks like a proper palak paneer! what was the texture of the paneer like?
I thought palak was spinach?
It was almost a month ago, so I can’t properly remember the texture of the paneer. I guess I’ll have to order it again and let you know. The flavor was wonderful though.
You are correct, @Bookwich. I just got confused. Palak is the Punjabi word for spinach. Saag is the word for greens in general.
Not quite. Palak is spinach. Saag is a Punjabi dish of slow cooked greens, usually spinach and mustard greens or just mustard greens. Some people add turnip greens too.
Palak = Spinach
Sarson = mustard greens
Sarson da saag and makki di roti (mustard greens with corn griddle bread) is a very popular and well-known punjabi food combination! 
Um, actually “saag” (“shaak” in Bengali, Gujarati etc.) does mean greens more generally. Sarson refers to mustard (shorshe in Bengali), not the greens specifically. In Punjabi mustard greens are “sarson da saag” and in Hindi they’re sarson ka saag; mustard oil, similarly, is sarson ka tel (oil) in Hindi and shorshe tel in Bengali. The name of the dish “sarson da saag” just refers to the primary ingredient–but you can make other things with the ingredient sarson da saag or mustard greens; it’s just that since that’s probably the quintessential Punjabi dish the words “sarson da saag” have come to be associated almost entirely with the name of the dish. Spinach, mustard greens, turnip greens, water spinach etc. are all specific types of saag/shaak.
I’m going to have to disagree with you on part of this. I can’t speak for Bengali or Gujrati, but I am Punjabi. We speak Punjabi. We don’t refer to greens as saag. If you say you made saag, or are cooking saag, that is a dish, not greens. Each green has its own name. Mustard greens themselves are not sarson da saag; that is a specific dish made with the sarson (the Punjabi word for mustard greens). You can make saag with other greens, but then it’s just saag, not sarson da saag.
Yes, exactly: sarson da saag is mustard greens; saag is greens more generally.
Saag = a Punjabi dish made with greens
Sarson da saag = saag made with mustard greens
Greens themselves are not referred to as saag. There are non-saag Punjabi dishes that use greens of different types. One would refer to the specific green, i.e. Sarson (mustard greens), “shalgam de patthey” (turnip greens), palak (spinach), etc.
For example, if you made chicken with chopped spinach, it’s called “palak murgh”. Not saag murgh. If you made a dish with turnip greens, you’d say you made “shalgam de patthey di sabji”, or “dish made of turnip greens”.
Again, I can only speak for Punjabi usage, not that of other regions.