Shubhakamana Restaurant

Shubhakamana Restaurant serves what is very close to Nepalese home-style cooking; dishes such as chow mein, dumplings, crisp soybean salad and goat meat. The other things to try here to get your head around the cuisine are the noodles and momos (jiaozi- or gyoza-like dumplings popular in Nepal, Tibet and North India).

There are momos steamed, fried and doused in chilli sauce. There are also kothey ones (half steamed, half fried), others in jhol (a tangy and earthy tomato soup) and sadeko-style momos (marinated in a tart and spicy pickle sauce), all made with chicken or buffalo meat.

Like momos, noodles are everywhere in Nepal: on the street, in restaurants, in the home, even roadside for those on mountain treks. The most popular is the Chinese-influenced chow mein. It’s a basic wok-fried dish of springy, thin wheat noodles, whatever veg is available and the Nepalese additions of buffalo and that same spiced tomato sauce.

Also try a thukpa, a Himalayan chicken noodle soup that’s spicy, salty and tart from a healthy squeeze of lemon. And a thali, a multi-dish platter found all over the subcontinent. In Nepal the most important ingredient on a thali platter is dhido, a starchy buckwheat pudding with a texture like leftover porridge. Tear a hunk from it and use it as a sponge or scooping device for your curry, pickles and lentil soup.