Nepali cuisine

blue lander

blue lander

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Aug 16, 2011
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So in the last couple of years I've noticed a lot of Indian looking fellers in my neck of the woods wearing dhaka hats. A few months ago a restauraunt opens up down the street purporting to sell "Indian and Nepali" food. I looked at the menu, it was mostly Indian stuff, but they did have a section labeled "Nepali"...

Nepali Thali
Khashiko Masu (Goat meat)
Bhootan
Khashi Ko Choila
Lambko Sukuti
Nepali Chowmen
Chicken Mo Mo
Vegetable Mo Mo

So obviously I want to go check it out. Does anyone have any recommendations of where to start?
 
Thanks! Now personally I love Indian food, but my wife hates it. She loves Tibetan food though, are any of these dishes more like Tibetan food than Indian?
 
I'm curious how you make out here blue. I've led kind of a sheltered life and if it ain't on the dollar menu at McD's I probably don't need it.

I did eat goat once and it was fantastic, way better than I anticipated. I guess a goat is a goat, this was a wild one I shot myself with a bow and arrow. Course a lot can happen during the cooking.

I never could handle spicy stuff too good so guess I'm plumb next to useless in your culinary quest for answers.

Do let us know though just in case somebody tries to talk me into one of them places.
 
You oughta try a goat Mongolian style. They cut the head off,take out all the guts, and then throw them all in a big pot and boil them. For the body they burn off the hair with a blowtorch. They fill the body cavity with super hot stones and sew it shut. The stones cook it from the inside out in an airless environment so it tastes like barbeque. Then you eat the meat and the boiled innards and head. The meat around the lips and tongue are supposed to be the best, along with the eyeballs which only the menfolk can eat.

Over here in the states they can't slaughter a whole goat, so they just buy goat or lambs meat. They cook up a bunch of stones till they're super hot and then chuck 'em in a pressure cooker along with the meat and veggies. Pretty dang good, but the menfoll crack the bones open and suck the marrow out. That stuff is too greasy for me. You're supposed to hold the super hot grease covered stones in your hands, supposedly good for your health.

Here's a tip for anyone who tries cooking rocks over an open fire: You gotta use stones that haven't been in water for the past 500 or so years. If they have even a little moisture in 'em it turns to steam and the rocks explode.
 
blue lander said:
Thanks! Now personally I love Indian food, but my wife hates it. She loves Tibetan food though, are any of these dishes more like Tibetan food than Indian?
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Mo Mo's are Tibetan and good tasty (but stodgy) food.

I grew up next to the UK's Gurkha barracks so I've tasted many Nepali curries, they're great! I'd say you could order blind and be quite happy with what you get.
 
A stone what ain't been wet for 500 years. Not gonna happen in Washington, guess I could stick a few in the garage and let the wait begin.

Yall can have my share of them eyeballs too, all cept Shavru, it's a man thing darling, I don't support it but you know rules and such.
 
Those momos look just like dumplings i had in a Tibetan restaurant in Manhattan! Very similar to Mongolian dumplings which they call buuz. If they make 'em small they call 'em bansh, and if they fry 'em instead of steaming 'em they call it hushuur. All the same ingredients though.
 
Ideally you want volcanic rock, but any rock with rough edges is okay. Just as long as they don't look smoothed, then you know they've been in water. Next thing you know you here a quiet little pop and a chunk of rock the size of your knuckle shoots off like a bullet.

The eyeballs are supposed to be good for a man's... Uh, vigor I guess you'd say in polite society.

Here's some pics on how they do it "back home". Not from me but from pics I found on the google.

http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2013/bodog/

And here's how they do it in 'murica

http://www.196flavors.com/2013/12/01/mongolia-khorkhog/
 
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blue lander said:
The eyeballs are supposed to be good for a man's... Uh, vigor I guess you'd say in polite society.
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LoL hun, When I was in Vietnam (no war related MUCH MUCH later) the old villagers and I talked quite a bit. Funny thing is all the parts no one WANTS to eat they claim are good for the "vigor" and are delicacies so they feed them to the silly tourists. Then the village folks eat the chicken breast and thighs and the good bits while the guest is choking down the "honor" pieces LOL LOL.
 
Now there's some vital and undoubtedly true information to digest anyway you can.

Downright slippery but smart of them.

Bunch of my cousins worked at a packing house in Missouri, certain days of the week the do cows, other days pigs.

Regular assembly line, watched em a few times. They'd take on the unuseable stuff and stick it in big like garbage cans and those were wheeled out to an outside storage area. As they'd go to wheel it out they'd take a bottle of some sort of concoction and squirt a bunch of it in the can. I asked what that was for, apparently some locals, I don't know if they were poor or guts and stuff was something they thought was good would come at night and take the stuff.

So liability and lawyers being what they are they didn't want to take no chances so they squirt this stuff (I think it was blue) in the can and got the word out that it was poison or would make you really sick. Think it was just food color but it worked.
 
No need to tell me about delicacies. Last time I was in Nam, the Marines were celebrating their 196th Anniversary. A huge party was going on and they had imported some Thai strippers for the floor show....and that is where they performed their bump and grind. This small Vietnamese Naval Ensign had never seen anything like this and still wasn't getting much of a look see, so I picked him up and sat him on my shoulders. He had a great time and we ended up getting hard core plastered. I wasn't speaking Vietnamese and he wasn't speaking English, but we were bestest buds by this time. Arm in arm, we headed out the Officer's Club door just as my platoon leader was coming in. Looking at him cross-eyed and through only one eye, I finally was able to blurt out that I was going home to his place and surprise of surprises, I got the "go ahead" nod.

The next morning, I woke up, the sun was shining, the birds were singing and I was laying buck naked on this very low, little bed. I was looking up at a thatched roof. Not knowing WTF I was, I crept up to the door and peeked out. My flight shirt was spread out on a bush drying off and two local women was washing my nomex trousers! WTF!! Then Chinh (my new RVN friend) came in. I later understood that his Mom & Sister were washing my clothes because before leaving the O Club the night before, Chinh and I , along with the rest of the club's patrons, had gotten into a huge food fight with the Anniversary cake and it's frosting was all over my flight suit. That afternoon we headed back to Nha Be in this little 20 foot sampan. Cripes! We were 8 miles up the river in Injun Country and me without a rifle or even my miserable .38!

A week rolled by and I gets this invite to go back to Chinh's place. Actually it was his Dad's place and he was the village chief. They were cooking a special supper for me because they liked me and was the first round eye they ever met. I was leery, but my platoon leader had already been informed via Nha Be's Naval Commander, that protocol demanded I show up since I was to represent the US of A. Got there, I did. At supper, we were sitting on the floor in a circle and was having some pretty good chicken somethin'er'uther. Chinh's littlest Sister had adopted me and was sitting next to me, helping me with my supper and holding my hand. Then, since I was the guest of honor, I was given a small covered dish which was for me to eat. I slowly opened the lid and a chicken head, sans feathers, was lookin' back at me. Through sign language, I understood that I was to crack the skull with my teeth and suck out the brain....gag....choke...almost puke..... Chinh's littlest Sister was watching with BIG eyes and so I knew it was a treat. Being the gentleman I am, kind and tender-hearted, too, I smiled at the little Sister and proceeded to raise that chicken head to my lips. She watched every tiny move I made and I could sense she would really like to have that fowl looking head. Her parents saw what she was doing and said something to her. Not happy. She lowered her head and looked down. Just as the chicken started to enter my mouth, I quickly lowered it and gave it to her. She squealed and CRACK, SUCK, and it were gone, baby! She was on Cloud Nine and being scolded by her Mom & Dad. Bless her. I placed my arm around her and gave her a little hug. That appeased her parents as they hadn't lost any face. She looked at me and I thought: "My savior". She was smiling. I was smiling. Great supper, let me tell you.

In the next week, our radio operator came running up. Had been searching for me. Mr. Bookout! Mr. Bookout! You gotta phone call, Sir! A phone call? Yessir! On the land line, Sir!...and it's a GIRL! WTF!! BIG TIME, too!! I ran to the radio shack and picked up the phone. When the conversation was over, I set the phone back on it's cradle and told the guys gathered around to witness this highly unusual event, that NEVER, EVER, would someone accept a phone call from that girl again!! Turns out it was Chinh's OLDEST Sister. She had fell in love with your's truly and wanted to get married and go to the land of the Big PX. Uh-uh. Nada. Ain't no way. Not gonna happen, G.I.

Now as Paul Harvey would say: "Now, for the rest of the story..."
Chinh and I became really good friends. He flew as a spare machine gunner with me every night he didn't have the duty. Maybe 3 months or so. He got married at the zoo in Saigon. Wife was a looker, too! Still have their wedding day photograph of them standing on the little red Japanese arched foot bridge. After I DEROS'ed home, we wrote letters to each other and I sent him a cowboy hat. He had wanted one very badly after we watched McKenna's Gold (in Vietnamese) at a Saigon movie theater. (The Vietnamese thought Telly Savales was one nasty bad guy and Gregory Peck was a wimp! But they loved westerns.) Then South Vietnam fell. Never heard back from him. About 3-4 years later, I received a letter via Paris, Stockholm, Sweden, and many other post marks, from his middle Sister. Chinh's wife was executed by being shot in the face. Chinh was drug off to a reeducation center up North. No one knew what had become of him. She thought bad because people knew that he and I were friends and had ratted on him. Guess we still are as I have a couple of photos and a stack of letters.
Ensign%20Dinh%20Van%20Chin%20RVN%20Navy%20-%20Copy.jpg
[/URL][/IMG] Ensign Dinh Van Chinh, Republic of South Vietnam Navy February, 1971. Waiting in our radio shack for me to get the helicopter ready to go.
 
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Damn...sorry to hear about your friend Bookie.

I'm glad you have the fond memories, unfortunately tainted by some of life's cruelties.
 
I eat at an Indian restaurant regularly but it a vegetarian. The food is great. Not sure if its North or south Indian. North I would think would be similar to Nepali.
Heres what I know and think I know off the top of my head (Google not needed).
Breads:
puri-puffed fried bread. Usually they stuff it with a sweet and spicy mango chutny like stuff (pani puri). Very spicy and good. Takes about ten of them to fill you up.
Pakori- fried bread with pieces of veggies in the middle like mushrooms onions broccoli cauliflower. Best accompanied with more food.
Paratha-A pan fried white flatbread. Cooking surface lightly oiled.
Methi paratha-A pan fried flatbread with fenigreek leaves (Methi seeds also). My favorite:thumbup:
nan-pan baked flat bread not fried like puri.
other stuff:
Aloo tiki- cooked down spicy garbanzo beans witha frien potatoe dumpling.
Samosa chat- Fried dumplings with cooked down garbanzo beans similar to aloo tiki but no potatoes.
Dosa- A thin almost crispy crepe like bread poured on a griddle and folded up with a mix of potatoes, onions, and peppers.
Masala Dosa- Same as above but bread spiced with Garam masala (?) I think thats the spice? Looks likea red pepper crepe but is very tasty.
Tali special and chats. Your favorite bread with soups and stews called Chats on the side. Usually served with some pickled stuff with fermented limes. Not sure what it is but ive been eating it for years and is like Indian hot sauce. You gotta have it with everything.

For deserts: Rasmaali- not sure what it is but is like rice cakes with a yogurt sause and pistacios srinked on top. Yummm!!!
Also they have Lassi's . They are yogurt drinks with mango, sugar cane, and plenty of other native fruits. I think they have some milk in them too but not sure.
There thats what I know? And when I leave i say shookria to the nice Indian lady on the way out. That means thank you! Not a clue how you spell it? Thats a once a week experience for me at least. Love the food!
 
Mr. Bookout. Thank you for allowing us the honor of that story.

Since my failed marriage to my sons mother, I have been enamored with Filipino foods. Most of them quite delicious. Things like Adobo chicken (yum) and fish, Dinuguan (chocolate meat), Octopus, squid and other such thing. Many of them forgotten now. One of the few I was not able to tolerate was Balut. Something about the smell and thought of eating a pickled bird embryo in shell just turned me right off.

Been longing to try some nepali foods though. Can't be all that different from Indian or Thai cuisine some of which I like to enjoy from time to time.
Being a Born and bred American though, my heart will always belong to Steak, Cheesegurgers, Pizza and moms apple or elderberry pie.
 
Karda said:
Mr. Bookout. Thank you for allowing us the honor of that story.

Since my failed marriage to my sons mother, I have been enamored with Filipino foods. Most of them quite delicious. Things like Adobo chicken (yum) and fish, Dinuguan (chocolate meat), Octopus, squid and other such thing. Many of them forgotten now. One of the few I was not able to tolerate was Balut. Something about the smell and thought of eating a pickled bird embryo in shell just turned me right off.

Been longing to try some nepali foods though. Can't be all that different from Indian or Thai cuisine some of which I like to enjoy from time to time.
Being a Born and bred American though, my heart will always belong to Steak, Cheesegurgers, Pizza and moms apple or elderberry pie.
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My brother lived in the Philippines for two years. He shares your dislike of Balut, though he has eaten it. Yet I have a bunch of friends who lived in the Philippines who love Balut. Thankfully the weirdest thing I ate while I lived in Brasil was chicken carcass.
 
Scara said:
My brother lived in the Philippines for two years. He shares your dislike of Balut, though he has eaten it. Yet I have a bunch of friends who lived in the Philippines who love Balut. Thankfully the weirdest thing I ate while I lived in Brasil was chicken carcass.
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I tried it. Knew right away I wouldn't be able to swallow it and spit it back out. Wifes relatives weren't pleased but I'd rather do that than vomit.
 
Ndog if you want something REALLY tasty order some bhindi masala, talk about yumm, spicy okra kinda stir-fried. And Gobi Aloo with Cauliflower and potato and you have to pop a bunch of Balushahi which is a buttermilk donut, flakey outside with a soft inside. yeah, Indian food is another addiction of mine too :D I LOVE foods from every one of the 82 countries I have visited. I have yet to find a country that I can't find a lot of food I like in, though there are some foods I avoid unless diplomatically required to eat them.

Bookie, Sadly I have heard similar stories before of reprisals against villagers who even spoke to Americans after we left. It seems many people were fingering everyone else trying to save their own butts. Isn't it amazing how even when you don't speak each other's language a certain amount of alcohol works great for translating? :D When I lived in Germany my in-laws came to visit us. We stayed at a small guesthouse and signed up for a wine tasting in the cellar. In-laws spoke no German, the Germans who were hosting and the other guests at the event spoke no english and hubby was translating. About halfway through, we were tasting home made herbal liqueur something called Melissa which is actually lemon balm. POTENT stuff. Hubby ran upstairs to use the bathroom but by the second little glass everyone was having a great time, no translation needed.
 
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Bookie, I've often heard tales and claims about how Vietnam was all our fault and all that bull. But the story of your friend has reminded me that for all our mistakes, it was the North Vietnamese who sent people to reeducation camps and performed all manner of horror the moment they took the South. If the whole of Vietnam really wanted to be unified except for a small minority, than why were so many disappeared the moment we withdrew all support?
 
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