Food in Nepal – Day 5 and 6 – Momos, fresh yogurt, thali, bhatura

In continuation of my Nepalese food posts, the below are the last few meals for our last few days in Nepal.

Day 5 Breakfast:

As you already know, breakfast was at our hotel – Royal Singi in Kathmandu city. I had mentioned how much I liked the food and this morning was no exception.

While some items were similar, (which wasn’t pictured here again), there were some that was “new”. And other than potatoes, Nepal do fry very good omelettes  Non-greasy, thick, fluffy and well seasoned. Seriously, some of the American breakfast cafes or even our chinese economica rice stalls should learn a thing or two from them!

And the oats. A bowl for me every morning without fail.

Same goes for the milk. I like mine hot.

Fresh out of the oven, these pastries totally rocks. Perfectly flaky layers oozing hot custard within.

With a full stomach, we set out for another 3 hours drive to Bhaktapur city (blogpost errr..soon but don’t count on it) for more historic and cultural sight-seeing.  Along the long journey, we had a short break at Dhulikhel Mountain Resort, which was almost 1550m above sea level. It could be thought as the “Cameron Highlands” of Malaysia.

Here flowers blooms in full glory and the resort is charmingly quaint.

But this was what we came for.

The majestic Himalayan range was spread out in front of us. Hours were spent here taking capturing the breathtaking view and of course, of ourselves. 🙂

Day 5 morning tea:

Hot masala tea was poured and all of us relaxed before continuing our back-numbing hours long journey to the city of Bhaktapur.

Even the men enjoyed a little tête-à-tête s session! LOL. Note the pinky!

At Bhaktapur, we visited the ancient city and had a good educational walking tour. Naturally, come lunch time (or even before lunch time) I was famished.

Day 5 Lunch:
Lunch was nearby at Watshala Garden Restaurant, which again like Cafereena, serves a multitude of cuisine to suit everyone.

The waiters are all very smartly dressed and polite.

Inside the kitchen, the team toil over hot woks frying (what else) potatoes, vegetables and meat.

Our lunch was pre-ordered by our guides (actually every meal was pre-ordered, we didn’t get to choose ). When my set came put down in front of me, I had a shock. Ermm, what exactly is this?

The rice was superb as usual though the same can’t be said for the chicken. The other sides were alright and the potatoes were addictive as usual.

Ok, so lunch wasn’t great. But that’s until the yogurt was served.
Our guide had said that the yogurt here is famous and from the first scoop I knew why. It was mildly tangy, sweet, thick and fresh. Heavenly! 🙂

Thanks to fresh cow milk, the hot chocolate was fabulous too!

Here’s the brochure for Watshala Garden Restaurant.

After lunch, our exploration of Nepal continued to Patan Durbar Square, another historical and architecture site. Dinner was at Nepali Chulo, a restaurant that serves authentic Nepalese. Like finally!

This was like the one and only fully Nepalese meal we had throughout the entire trip.

Day 5: Dinner – an authentic Nepalese meal.

We started off with some appetisers and funnily enough we got salted popcorns.

A large mound of rice is served on a thali—a rimmed brass or stainless steel plate. The plate is typically very heavy. The rice is surrounded by smaller mounds of vegetables, fresh chutney/preserved pickles, and fish or meat. Soup-like dal and vegetables cooked in sauce may be served in separate small bowls, to be poured over the rice.

Our dinner was more extravagant, where the waiters came with rice and dishes and scoop these onto our plates. Think of a banana leaf meal and you’ll get the idea.

Dessert was yogurt, though it was nowhere as good as the one we had at Watshala.

Part of the appeal of dining here at Nepali Chulo is the love cultural performances. And yes, that’s a guy.

Day 6: Breakfast

I came down for breakfast the next day in anticipation a spread as good as the days before. As usual I had my omelette.

And more omelette.

Plus the best fresh oats and my hot milk.

This was new on the buffet – the Bhatura, just like the Puri that we know, best eaten with the fresh, hot chickpeas curry.

It was really really delish.

Today’s fresh pastry was apple pie, with a huge chunk of apple inside.

It tasted BETTER than it looked. Uh huh, it was that good!

After breakfast was some free and easy time for shopping. We barely had any time for shopping for the past 5 days so this was our only window of opportunity to go crazy. All of us went to Thamel Street, a shopping area which consists of a few streets lined with shops selling pashmina, bags, souvenirs and etc. It was a touristy place where bargaining is a must and authenticity of products are very much questionable.

Day 6: Lunch before departure.

Our last meal was at The Asian Village Restaurant and Bar, also in Kathmandu city.

 

I saw the semi-open kitchen and took a closer peek.

Not surprisingly, the first I saw was POTATOES! :DD

 

Our lunch was more momos,

 

I’m not complaining! Not when the momos were so juicy and packed with minced meat.

 

 

I liked the deep fried potatoes as well, though these was fried in a spiced batter.

It was slightly spicy, accompanied by a sweetly spicy sauce. A new variation of eating potatoes here!

 

We washed it down with wonderful sweet and banana lassi.

 

If you’re ever in Kathmandu and wanted to visit  The Asian Village Restaurant and Bar, here’s the address.

 

 

We took one last group picture, thanked our tour guides and …

 

……..it was the airport next…

Farewell Nepal, till we meet again! 🙂

** This is a media trip with the Air Asia team and media from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia. We were in Nepal for the Air Asia X CSR launch of the OCPL programme, a community outreach project in partnership with OLE Nepal.

*Group photo credit to Djamilah from Indonesia.

Our 6D5N tour was handled by Incentive Tours & Travels Pvt Ltd who did a fabulous job taking care of us!
For any enquiries about traveling in Nepal, do drop me a comment here! 🙂

More posts on NEPAL:

• Kathmandu, Nepal 2012 – Day 1 in summary – Arrival: Tribhuvan International Airport & the 6 hours journey to Chitwan National Park
• Kathmandu, Nepal 2012 – AirAsia X CSR Launch : Kathmandu, Nepal – One Child One Laptop Programme (OLPC)
  
• Kathmandu, Nepal 2012 – Sarangkot – amazing sunrise & breathtaking Annapurna mountains view!
• Kathmandu, Nepal 2012 : Chitwan National Park – Elephant rides, baby rhinos and more!
• Kathmandu, Nepal 2012 : NEPAL: Art & Culture – Hanuman – dhoka Durbar Square @Kathmandu City
• Kathmandu, Nepal 2012 :Food in Nepal – Potatoes, rice, a lot of vegetables, bananas and surprisingly good pastries
  
• Kathmandu, Nepal 2012 :Food in Nepal – Day 3, 4 – breakfast, Him Thai Restaurant, Cafereena – a multi cuisine restaurant & Chinatown Restaurant
• Kathmandu, Nepal 2012 :Food in Nepal – Day 5 and 6 – Momos, fresh yogurt, thali, bhatura & chola!