Kathmandu Travel Guide

Eating Out

Besides Nepalese food, restaurants here serve a wide variety of delicacies such as Indian, Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, Italian, Australian, Russian, Korean, Mexican and Continental at remarkably reasonable prices.

Thamel, the tourist centre of Kathmandu, is well known for its countless first-rate restaurants, cafes and pubs. It is also developing into a major hangout place for many young Nepalese as well as tourists. Several pubs serve exotic and local beverages with DJs playing the latest western music.

All-purpose ‘Continental’ menus can be found in many tourist oriented eateries. These cater to Western travellers and they’re all pretty similar, featuring steaks, pasta and pizza and even a few pseudo-Mexican and Greek dishes, as well as ever-popular pies and cakes.

Some of the best meals in the city can be had at the many Indian restaurants dotted around the city. Service, on the other hand, leaves much to be desired, even at the best restaurants.

The climate has allowed the country to grow crops such as rice, lentils, wheat, corn and potatoes. Though Nepalese food is rather simple, it absolutely does not lack in flavour, making good use of spices and flavourings such as chillies, cilantro, coriander, cumin, garlic, ginger, pepper, mustard oil, ghee and sometimes yak butter.

The country’s staple diet is dal (lentils), bhat (rice) and tarkari (curried vegetables). Since Nepal is a Hindu kingdom, beef is strictly prohibited among both the Hindus and Buddhists.

Tongues, liver and brains all feature in the Newari kitchen. Other favourites include sag (green vegetables which are served with rice), tarkari (curried vegetable broth), masu (spiced or curried meat with gravy), chatamari (flat bread made from rice flour with or without eggs, meat, vegetables or sugar toppings) and momo (steamed or fried dumplings stuffed with minced meat).