Review: Ayurveda Cafe

I guess it's time for my first negative restaurant review here on my blog. Tonight, a friend and I went to a restaurant called Ayurveda Cafe (Amsterdam Ave. and 94th St.). It follows an Indian holistic view of well-being (Ayurveda) by serving carefully-selected vegetarian dishes that balance out the tastes of salty, sweet, sour, bitter, astringent and pungent. Basically, you are served a large platter that consists of small servings of: rice, two entrees, lentils, salad, raita, and naan. There is also an appetizer and a dessert. Ayurveda Cafe follows a daily set menu, so the diner does not have any ordering options.

Our food arrived faster than an order of fries at McDonalds, and based on its texture and temperature, seemed like it was lying around for a little bit. The appetizer resembled a hockey puck, but based on the potato-and-pea filling, I'm guessing that it was an attempt at a samosa. The entrees were not bad, but were eaten because I was hungry, not because I was necessarily enjoying them! The naan was flat (nothing like in the picture!). The salad remained untouched. My friend and I saved the raita (a yogurt-based sauce) until the end, thinking that it was rice pudding. To our surprise, it did not taste like rice pudding, but rather a bitter, awful, familiar taste that I quickly pinpointed as paint. Luckily for us, a real dessert did arrive after our plates were cleared, and it was an interesting (and good) dish that tasted like cardamon-enhanced peanut butter but had the texture of brown sugar. At least the meal ended well! The service was lacking, no one took the time to explain to us what was on our plate (if they did, maybe we wouldn't have mistaken the 'paint' for pudding!), and the place had no atmosphere to speak of. My friend was squished between a wooden divider and a space heater while I became hypnotized by a neon-light buddha display. Although the dinner is a mere $12, I would recommend spending a few dollars more and ordering the vegetarian thali plate from a good restaurant like Curry Leaf. All that Ayurveda left me was craving some real Indian food - and thus no sense of balance or well-being!