Ayurveda Café

The chef decides what you’re going to eat for dinner—you can’t argue with the millennia-old laws of Ayurveda. That Hindu doctrine prescribes six rasas (tastes)—sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent and astringent—to balance your diet and, perhaps, your life. The result resembles a typical Indian thali meal consisting of two vegetable curries, dal, rice, nan, raita and chutney, all presented in steel bowls on a steel plate. The curries lacked zing, but maybe that’s the price you pay for balance. Fortunately, the rules have a little wiggle room: You get to pick a drink, and you can eat all you want.