Hare Krishna Pizza

From first glance, Govinda's may appear to be a Hare Krisha-affliated joint but it's actually Italian-owned, serving homemade egg-free pastas and other nice veggie items. It is located in Soi 22, sort of hidden away amidst slightly sketchy bars and skanky peeps. (Sadly, such scenes have spilled over into more sois along Sukhumvit. It's sort of a normal Bangkok-after-dark kind of thing.. Not really the Bangkok we remember from way back.)

As a vegetarian Italian restaurant, Govinda is definitely a unique idea that may have stemmed from the owners' personal interests as images of Indian deities harmoniously co-existed with bottles of olive oil, chianti, and jars of pasta. We started with arancini that was fried up as expected but served with Thai sweet chili dipping sauce. Um, at that point we wondered how authentic the food was going to be. The homemade tartufo (pasta) in a creamy truffle sauce more than made up for it. The egg-less pasta was nice and chewy in a comfortingly rich sauce tinged with a mushroom flavor. It was so simple and so good, the gluttons had to order a second pasta dish. Same sauce but with artichokes. Even after the two dishes, bread basket, and arancini, we ordered affogato (espresso poured over vanilla gelato). Such piggyness. Oink.

We are getting so fat here.