CLOSED: L'Arbre a Souhaits de Govinda

I was delighted to hear about this veg restaurant in the area and made a bee-line to visit. The name inspired hopes of an experience similar to the fabulous Govinda's restaurants in Dublin. I was very disappointed.

As another reviewer has mentioned, the restaurant is very small with the kitchen in the corner. The kitchen appears to have no ventilation at all so we sat all evening with the odour of frying (and burning) seeping into our clothes.

The set menus at 18 and 21 euros provided ample quantites of food, some of which was tasty. However, there was little detail provided of what would be served. Every dish was a guessing game. There was lots of ghee used and paneer in one of the curries so it was not suitable for vegans or for people with lactose-intolerance, though again we were left to work this out for ourselves.

When we had finished eating, the owner told us that their home-made paneer was made from raw milk. This could be very dangerous for pregnant customers and should have been advertised up front. Luckily, I (a pregnant customer!) had not eaten any. My companion was not so lucky and he suffered a severe bout of food poisoning, which seemed linked to the paneer.

The dessert was delicious. The owner/staff were friendly if you could speak to them in French. I'm sure they mean well but I will certainly not be going back or recommending it to anyone. Quite the contrary.

If you are Vegan, don't go to this sad parisian restaurant. All the dishs are cooked with ghee (indian clarified cow butter). The place smell very bad, because the kitchen is in the mainrom. So you can see the Chef cooking in real time, and honestly it's not very clean...

Basically, I was told about this restaurant only a couple of weeks ago as being a brand new restaurant.
I'm pretty surprised by the previous comment because we found one amazing place yesterday evening.
Do not except a typical Govinda place, however it is still an hinduist where they were playing chants all the time we stayed there.
We had a starter consisting of a tart & random raw veggies that were really yummy.
In between we had some kind of dal, actually a soup with lentils.
Main course was some kind of vedic beans cooked with spicy tomatoes, whole rice and what I first believed was tofu, but in fact was Indian cheese. Served with nan.
Desert was a crumble with pears & chocolate.

Everything was delicious. The owners are really nice. Service is a bit slow but the place is nice so it doesn't matter.

My only complaint would be about vegan options

Although not a Govinda (or Hare Krishna restuarant) we went there to see what it would be like. It is located 2 min. from the Metro exit ".
Walk down the "rue des Batignolles" and turn right in the "rue Caroline". This petit restuarant is located next to a small hotel.

We wanted to eat there but we put 1 feet in the door and found out the staff were smoking inside. I really can not stand smoke so we retreated quickly outside again.
So no review about the food.
The staff were two foreign lookking ladies. The kitchen was part of the little shop. Only a few chairs and table are available for seating.

I dont know about the food, but from the staff and the place i did not get a good feeling.