WINNING A CONVERT TO KRISHNA TEMPLE DINING

Uh-oh. A restaurant at the Krishna Temple.

I mean, hey, I’m already fully stoked in the incense department. I’m fully oversubscribed in the subscriptions department.

I would never have tried Gauranga’s at all if the place hadn’t been recommended to me--in the disco murk of Pinafini, as it happens--by an Irvine student who doesn’t look as if anybody could ever crowd her into buying incense or magazines, as the Hare Krishnas were once famous for doing in airports.

In fact, you are left quite in peace. The only things for sale are music tapes and a bumper sticker reading “Friends Don’t Let Friends Eat Meat,” and the only proselytizing is a matter of a literature rack and some devotional prints on the walls.

This makes sense in the Hare Krishnas’ terms because they believe their food has proselytizing powers in and of itself. It’s supposed to be attractive without stimulating the lower appetites, which means among other things that it must not be overspiced. The result, I must say, always tastes light and clean, and not quite like anything else.

The meals follow strict dietary laws: no meat, fish or eggs--in fact, no non-dairy animal products at all--and no garlic or onions (the place smells faintly of asafetida, a sulfurous spice that more or less takes the place of garlic). This sounds rather like health food, and a free Krishna cookbook extols its health benefits.

The real reasons for the dietary regimen are religious, though. For instance, sugar and salt--particularly sugar--are freely used, and the principal cooking oil is butterfat.

Gauranga’s is a small place with perhaps two dozen tiny tables, reached by a Legion Street entrance to the temple. The first thing you see is a standard American salad bar (no bacon or hard-boiled egg, of course) with the unusual addition of raw chickpeas.

There’s a basket of fresh bread, maybe corn bread or whole wheat, with plenty of butter to go on it. And then there’s a hot table that usually features delicious buttered basmati rice, rather hideous-looking steamed vegetables and varied hot dishes.

Most of these are Indian, as you would expect. Either I’m just not ready for Krishna, or the stews--curries and subjis --are rather bland, often flavored with little more than turmeric. On the other hand, one potato and cauliflower subji was pretty good, with a nice little red-pepper bite. Quite a few items have a distinct flavor of asafetida, including the soups: peppery lentil, buttery though rather thin cream of cauliflower.

The most interesting Indian things to me are the fritters known as pakoras. One was just a cabbage leaf in a batter made of chickpeas flavored with black cumin and asafetida, like a cabbage leaf fried between two fresh papadums. Another was an irregular tangerine-size lump with a lot of vegetables in it, including tomatoes. It was fried so dark it might have horrified a lot of health food people, but I loved it.

Non-Indian items often show up on the menu. One night there was a vegetarian chili (good for what it was, which was just pinto beans with tomatoes and bell peppers, but I don’t think it would satisfy your mainstream chili lover) and a more successful tamale pie with a tomato, cheese and spinach stuffing. It was rich with cheese, but as Mexican food it was easy to mistake it for a sort of lasagna. It was tasty enough, though.

The best of the European items is the vegetarian spaghetti with . . . hey, these are not meatballs, bud. These are kufta, some of the most successful vegetarian meatballs I’ve ever had. The guy who takes your money seems disappointed in the vegetarians who pick out the kufta and leave the spaghetti, which is actually pretty good for whole-wheat spaghetti, with a pretty lively tomato sauce. There’s a chance that kufta may somehow appeal to the lower appetites.

The only sweet I’ve seen is halava, a crumbly confection of farina browned in butter a whole long time and flavored with raisins and sugar. It’s sort of like a cake doughnut that crumbles to bits at the slightest touch.

The Hare Krishnas do not approve of coffee or tea, so the only drinks are herbal teas and fruit-based drinks like limeade or a pretty good lime-honey mixture.

The people who come here include not only Krishna people but scattered vegetarians, the spiritually curious and an occasional thrifty senior citizen. At lunch the suggested donation is $4; at dinner it’s $5. But senior citizens pay only $2, and there doesn’t seem to be any restriction on how much you can eat. You don’t give your money to the saffron-robed monks. Look for an athletic-looking, dark-haired guy who often wears a T-shirt reading “100% Karma-Free Diet.”

GAURANGA’S 285 Legion St., Laguna Beach

(714) 494-7029

Open for lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday. No credit cards.