Yesterday, I had dinner with a friend at a restaurant called Amber in Mountain View, CA. I am fairly critical of the Indian food you get in the US (it is not REALLY INdian food) but I have to say Amber was very, very good. I ate and I ate and I ate and then I ate some more. The ambience is pretty nice (although not super-posh) and the prices are normal by bay area standards. Dinner for the 2 of us including beer and desert was 100 bucks including tip. However, between me and my friend, both of whom were coming off good workouts, we ate 3 people worth of food 
Let us start with beer and appetizers. The Reshmi kababs were very tender but a lot less spicy than I would have liked. THe papadums were great too, they usually are though, at any restaurant. The beer, Flying Horse is one of my favorite beers, very fine and smooth. So if you like smooth, mellow beers this one hits the spot. Both the main dishes was extremely good. We went “all chicken” since I don’t eat red meat. The “Special Kadhai chicken” was real special, very spicy and piping hot. It complemented the smooth, rich, creamy, Butter Chicken which was our 2nd main dish. The nans were soft and tasty. The only slight disappointments were the saffron rice (it was good rice but no saffron to speak of, I hear its super expensive ) and the onion kulchas which were a little dry. The desert was interesting, it was pistachio icecream topped with cooked, sweet vermicilli (called Pista Falooda I think). Was real tasty and quite unique, I haven’t eaten this desert before. Another good thing was that I saw a lot of really good dishes on the menu that I would definitely want to sample at some point later. So a very good reason to go back
Overall, a very good dining experience and definitely worth visting (again and again) if you are in the area. I would give it very high marks indeed.
Update: The phone number is 650-968-7511 and the website is http://www.amber-india.com/open.htm
