This mantra is hard to swallow

I hate restaurants that think they can charge you anything and get away with it. Mantra is definitely on my black list in that regard. Mantra is a contemporary French-indian restaurant in downtown Boston, right off of Boston Common. The building used to be an old federal bank I think, or a bank of some sort. The space is very cool yet the conversion from bank to restaurant/lounge has not been so smooth. It reminds me of an 80s communist restaurant for generals and their wives. The bare lighting, white walls, random curtains and music that literally sounds like coming from a boombox makes the atmosphere plain ugly and unfinished.
I was thinking the food must be really good to make up for the lack of finesse, especially if they have the nerve to charge $40 per dish. But I was wrong. The food was at best mediocre. As I was paying the bill, I was just feeling uncomfortable, not only because it was completely not worth the price but also because they started converting the place to a lounge as we were eating.
The lounge did not look very promising either but I did not want to stick around and see. They charge $20 to get in after 11pm. Any place that needs to charge a cover, unless it is a grungy bar with mediocre live music, is LAAAAMEEEE.
And Mantra left a bad taste in my mouth and an undeserved dent in my pocket.