PROFILED BY DE GROOTS MEDIAEveryone has to go to Govindas at least once, the venue that combines restaurant, movie house and holistic centre into one. You can visit just for a buffet dinner (from $16.90) but for the full experience the dinner-and-movie package is highly recommended (from $24.80). Start your evening on level one, the restaurant. The room is decorated with Hindu art and provides indoor and outdoor seating. A vegetarian buffet lines one wall, with a mixture of Indian and International hot and cold dishes on offer. The menu changes daily but always includes a dahl soup, white or brown rice, a hot vegetable dish, salads, cauliflower pakoras, potato wedges, penne pasta, and either kofta balls, potato bake or vegetarian shepherd’s pie.
Many of the choices are vegan, and the simple flavours can be enlivened with condiments like sunflower and sesame seeds, mango pickle and hot chutney. The food is prepared by brahman chefs, who first bless the food in accordance with the principles of Bhakti Yoga. If that makes as little sense to you as an Ikea assembling manual, don’t worry. The food is tasty and filling and that’s all you need to know. After dinner head upstairs to the cinema, replete with deep red chaises longues that you can sink into in extreme and utter comfort. It’s amazing how luxurious wholesomeness can be.
Sarah Theeboom