Short Intro on Some Nepali Food

I would like to introduce some of the Nepali Food that we have tried while we were in Nepal Nov~Dec 2009.

The Dal Bhat is Nepal's National Meal. They eat it for lunch and dinner. The one in this photo here is a vege Dal Bhat. There is rice, of course, Dal soup, papad, a potato dish and a vegetable dish with pickles. In this photo, the potato and vege is hidden under the papad, sorry. There are also meat Dal Bhat, and the meat will be a curried meat dish (see photo of more food in my Gallery)












The fried Tibetan Bread and the Fried Potato with Cheese and Eggs. The latter is very delicious. All the food is farm grown and fresh from the garden. There are fresh buffalo milk, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, cabbage, mint, lemongrass and other spices, oranges, apples, lemon, honey - everything we eat is locally grown. The portion of their meal is also large to my standard and I have to tell the cook to make it half their normal size in order to be able to finish it.


Kothey, which are fried Momos with either vegetable or meat fillings. The momos can be ordered fried, steamed or mixed, which is fried on one side and steamed on the other side. This is a savoury dish, especially ate with the dipping sauce of mustard and chilli. Yummy!



The Nepali Vege Fried Rice, which we ate several times as well, especially when we are hungry. It's filling and also it is one of the fastest order to make.

Here is another version of Dal Bhat - the deluxe version. This is also vege Dal Bhat but it has so many dishes. The Nepali Dal Bhat is something like a eat-all-you-can dish, you can ask for refills until your stomach can take no more...



We ate a lot of Dal Bhat, almost everyday for lunch, and it was a sumptuous meal which gives us the energy to walk on for hours and yet not too heavy.



Well, actually the Momos and the Tibetan bread are not really Nepali food but it is so common there and they are always on the menu.

Here is a list of other dishes we tried:
Cornbread - Fried corn flour bread
Apple Pie & Apple Fritters, Spaghetti, Pizza, Puddings, Chicken steak on sizzling hotplate and many many more all available on the Guesthouse menu.
Thukpa - Tibetan thin noodle soup (cooked with vege, chicken or mutton)
Thuntek - Tibetan broad noodle in thick soup
Gongdrek - Tibetan fried noodle
Kushi Katsu - BBQ chicken chunks with whole onions and capsicums on a skewer served with french fries and salad - it is barbecued with a Tibetan marinate - very nice!

As for drinks, we had fresh from the garden: mint tea, lemongrass tea, our favourite lemon tea with honey, Nepali black tea, milk tea and also Tibetan tea. We have also tried the Nepali Rakshi, a wine made from millets which tastes like Japaness Sake. and the Mustang Coffee.

In fact, if I were to comment on the food in Nepal in short - there is a wide variety of choice and most of them are nice.

Meet Jangbu and the Sherpas

We first met Jangbu Sherpa at Hotel Manang on Nov 20th. Our introductory of trekking in Nepal was: you may love the Himalayas very much but the Himalayas don't love you, the weather up there doesn't love you. However, we love you and Jangbu here will take good care of all of you... True enough. The introduction of Jangbu Sherpa was brief, but there was no rush. At first acquaintance, Jangbu seemed a quiet character. Unassuming and very accommodating, he soon blended in with us as soon as our trekking began.

On the first kilometer of our trekking from Nayapul, Jangbu told me about his career. He had started out as a porter for 3 years and after that he went to train to be a licensed trekking guide. Since then he had been in the trekking industry for 15 years. He has led many teams to various treks throughout Nepal, the Everest treks, the Annapurnas, the Mustang and even overland to Tibet. He had been up to camp 2 of Mount Everest several times. He knew the terrains like the palm of his hands. All of us are first timer trekkers in Nepal, but being an experienced and very practical guide, it took him no time at all to understand exactly what each of us wants and capably takes care of everyone of us throughout our trip. Jangbu is fluent in English and Japanese and therefore has regular trekking groups returning to trek with him as guide. This time round, we taught him some basic Mandarin while he taught us quite a lot of Nepali. Jangbu has a great support team with him - Ang Gelu as his assistant and the porters are his cousins. They all come from the same village in Lukla.

Ang Gelu Sherpa - our assistant guide, and also Jangbu's younger brother. Gelu is also like our butler cum model. He is our handy man who handles all our complaints, from fixing our door locks to supplying our daily drinking water, and also our natural guide who introduced so many flowers and plants during the journey. I must say we are so lucky to have them. During treks, Gelu will gladly become our model, for he is so photogenic. Gelu is only 20, but he already has led small groups and solo trekkers up to above 7000M summits.

Our porters are very young, aged between 17 to 22 and like all young people, are always with their mobile phones either messaging or playing Nepali pop songs. We had a very good cultural exchange with our guides and porters. In the short 9 days, they became our new family unit. Our journey is filled with their laughter and warm friendship. I will remember their amicable faces, each and every one of them, and even now after I had returned home a month later, I think fondly of them like my younger brothers in Nepal.

Da Finju Sherpa - I would say the most characteristic guy who looks good in every photo. He is always exuberating with energy and charisma. Finju is always brimming with curiosity and likes to learn new things, especially new technology. He is also a good singer and dancer and very eloquent with words, be it jokes or a general conversation, in Nepali or English.

Temba Sherpa is Finju's elder brother. Temba has a more quiet demeanor and always the first to take off every morning before everyone. Whenever I see him upon arriving our destination, he is already relaxing with ears plugged to his mobile phone and singing to some Nepali songs. Temba has a very beautiful voice when he sings.

Ang Furba Sherpa - best buddy of Finju. The two are always together whenever they are free. They would find anything to play with, be it volleyball or just mock fighting with each other. Sometimes they got a bit rough and most times Finju will win, as he is a strappy chap and more rowdy. Furba is slim but his strength is stunning. Furba dances in a typical stance that belongs to Furba alone.

Ang Pasang Sherpa - a very quiet and shy boy. Pasang is slim like Furba but a bit taller. You will always find Pasang further behind his more active friends. However, Pasang never hesitates to come forward if he sees any of us need any help, be it a problem with the shower faucets or just a hand to pull you up a slope.

These people from Nepal whom we met for the first time on November 21st (Jangbu a day before) had been so warm and open to us that made us feel like part of their family in Nepal. We had such a wonderful time with them as great companions, as our guides and porters, as haamro bai ra sathi (our brother and friend - pardon my broken Nepali).

I shall miss them all and look forward to return to bask in the awesome beauty of Nepal's landscapes and ice-clad mountains and once again feel the uninhibited freedom of vast space, land and sky. And of course, to see those warm sweet smiles on those genuinely happy faces of the Nepali village people again! Dhanyabaad, mero sathi!

Day 8 - Dhampus to Phedi (end of trekking)

Nov 30 Mon – Had our last cup of coffee from Gelu and we headed for Phedi (1.30hour) Very pleasant walk and even stopped under a Bodhi Tree and let Jangbu practise “Fairy Tale” again. He tried to sing along but only managed the few lines in the chorus bit. "Chang kai suang sou…"

The last 30mins after we heard that the van has arrived and is waiting for us, we walked very fast and soon reached the van. That’s the end of our 8 days trekking at 11am in the morning. We will go to our Pokhara hotel and will continue the day’s itinerary of Pokhara sight-seeing.

It was such a wonderful trekking experience! Most of us had wished that our trekking would carry on, and personally I will return again for more trekking in Nepal for sure.

Our appreciation to our guide, assistant guide and all the porters for their warm friendship and attentiveness throughout our whole journey in Nepal. They have made our experience that much more fun and interesting. A note about the Himalayas and the environment. The snow on the mountain peaks are fast reducing and we can see many black patches on the mountain peaks. It won't take much longer before all these natural wonders loses its beauty before our eyes. We should all do our part to protect eco-environment, every little effort counts.

read about Jangbu Sherpa, our guide and his porters in my next post!

Day 7 - Tolka to Dhampus

Nov 29 Sun - Dhampus 1770M (5hour) Breakfast time Ang Gelu brought our standard of the excellent strong coffee. The Nepali coffee is rather weak and Gelu has finally got on par to making a good cup of coffee by now. We shall miss Gelu’s coffee! Gelu personally takes care of our drinks to make sure we don’t get any tummy problems. He will fill our thermos and water bottles after breakfast and lunch with hot water or boiled water before we resume our trekking. Gelu has also become our photography model. In fact, all the boys and even Jangbu have been our models. They are all very photogenic.
Nice pleasant trek all the way almost flat and downhill with some gentle uphill. We reached the guesthouse at around 3pm, Hotel Panoramic Point.
Later we went out to the fields beside the hotel to watch a group of Nepali men play cards. We could not recognize their game. Our porters are playing volleyball. Every afternoon they will arrive the guesthouse at least 2 hours ahead of us. They will check in for us and organize our baggage and room. While waiting for us they will go into the fields to play volleyball with each other or the children there. They are brimming with vitality and laughter. We can always hear them laughing in the fields every time we arrive and their happiness is quite contagious.

On the very first day I realized I have not been laughing like them for some time. These boys who carry at least 20kgs on their backs and who walked thrice my pace can easily find many things to laugh about. I reflected on my life back home in the city and told myself I must somehow laugh more from now on. Too long living in tension in the cities can make us a very boring person. A thought came to my mind: We think we are rich with having more, but we have lost knowledge of our past and are blind to our future! Whereas the village people here; their grandfather has sat on the same old stone porch, looking at the same old lovely, balanced landscape across the terraced fields of his home valley, will probably see the same thing sitting on the same porch with their own grandchildren. Flat roofed stone houses on the terraced landscapes, with bundles of corn in husks hanging from the eaves of the house, with big rust-coloured roosters prancing on the stone walls, black dogs basking in the sun beneath hedges of marigolds and bouganvillas. A farmer plowing in his small field with his cow without any whip, talking quietly to the animal, guiding it back and forth. The animal obeyed perfectly. This place is so peaceful and beautiful it makes me want to stay and linger.

The boys saw us in the field and came to join us. Jangbu brought a big bowl of popcorn and we all sat down to eat in the field. Then we suggested to teach Jangbu a Chinese song, “Fairy Tale” by Guang Liang, a Malaysian singer.
After dinner, the singing and dancing starts again. This time, they are making it into a big party. The uncle of the inn came in, which really add life to the whole event as he forcefully and respectfully drew everyone of us from our seats to dance. Soon everyone is dancing in the small dining hall cum kitchen, the porters, the cook, the lady owner, everyone! Uncle consistently conducts quality check like our event director and made sure we really get into the groove of their dance. It lasted for one full hour and it was really fun. That uncle is a real entertainer. He sang with Jangbu and the boys the last 3 songs and then we all called it a night happily.

next day... Dhampus to Phedi

Day 6 - Jhinu Danda to Landruk to Tolka

Nov 28 Sat – Jangbu arranged 6am for those who want to go to the hot springs with Ang Gelu but in the end all of us opted to sleep in.


After breakfast of hot noodle soup and pancakes, we headed out for Landruk 1600M that estimates 5.30 hours. Nice journey all the way. Now all of us are getting accustomed to the trekking and are enjoying every moment of it.

We went GaGa when we came across a mustard field with the snow mountains and vast cloudless blue sky as the back drop. We all climbed into a field and took many photos. Crushing the plants for almost 30mins until the owner came with a concerned face. Feeling very apologetic and guilty then, we tried to restore our damages and quietly made our exit.

We arrived Landruk at 12.30pm to have Dal Bhat then continued to Tolka’s International Guesthouse (pic above right). There’s decent hot water shower and after dinner Jangbu and the boys sang and danced for us. Then Finzu came to drag people to dance with him. He tried to carry Pao Wen off the chair and eventually failed. So he came over to us and Lee Chin obliged happily. I tried to dance for a while following their way but gave up. Hong Leng did a video of the dancing and singing. At 9pm the sherpas went to bed but we continued to play cards till 10pm before heading to our bedrooms.

Day 5 - Ghandruk to Chomrong - Jhinu Danda

Nov 27 Fri - After a good breakfast of hot noodle soup, we got mischievous and started doing warming up in the garden with some yoga warrior poses. Someone started taking photos and we invited Ang Gelu to do yoga with us. We are a bit photo-crazy and we started taking photos of Jangbu and Ang Gelu, Finzu with Temba, Furba with Pasang, then all of them together and with us. The nuisance continued for half an hour before we all settled down to start our day’s trekking. Actually we were trying to lighten ourselves up because we know we have a tough day ahead of us to Chomrong (2020M) (5hours).

Chommrong is said to be the best place where you can see the Annapurna mountains very close and other traditional Nepalese houses in the villages. This place is the doorway to the ABC Trek – well, there was a slight change of plan and we will stay at Jhinu Danda (1730M) where there is a hot spring and Jhinu being lower it should be not as cold for us than Chomrong.

This was an amazing day of trekking! We trekked from Ghandruk down the valley to cross the river Modi Khola several times over different kinds of hanging bridges, then up the hill for lunch at Kumrong Khola’s Kumrong Guesthouse.

At 1pm the sun disappeared behind the clouds and it turned chilly. We felt quite tired and while we sat waiting for our lunch we started to feel sleepy. As there were 2 other bigger groups of trekkers before us so the kitchen is having a rush hour. Our lunch is finally ready after almost 45 mins. It’s Dhal Bhat as usual with everyone asking for extras as we were getting quite hungry after the long wait. Nice curry potatoes with papad, green cabbage, pickles and tasty dhal soup. After lunch it is 2 hours uphill to the peak to bypass the landslide area, then a long relentless downhill trek into Jhinu Danda. We trekked in the shape of a M or W on this day.

Total hours were like 6 hours (minus lunch time) and reached Jhinu Danda’s Namaste Hotel by 5.30pm. It was very tiring and our legs felt like they do not belong to us anymore. But we are getting more accustomed by now and just pushed on. For a moment, I felt that we were just like the mules and our daily routine is to trek trek trek… minus the bells going tong tong tong…

By the time we reached the guesthouse, none of us felt like going for the hot spring. It was too late anyway. After dinner, Jangbu came to join in our card game. We taught him our game and he taught us 2 Nepali games called something like Jiputi and another one called “Kiti”. Lee Chin also taught Jangbu some Chinese phrases. We laughed a lot the whole night and are enjoying every moment of our trekking trip in the Annapurna.

see next day...Jhinu Danda to Landruk to Tolka

Day 4 - Tadapani to Ghandruk

Nov 26 Thurs - Trek to Ghandruk (1970M) (3hours) This is the most pleasant day of our trek and we took an easy time taking lots of photos on the way. We started shooting at 6am to catch the sunrise as we can see the Machapuchare very clearly from our lodge. There are so many flowers everywhere we go – on the trail, in the villages, in every tea house – flaming red poinsettias, colourful bougainvilleas, hedges of bright orange marigolds, huge roses, chrysanthemums - they are all over the Annapurna treks and you can so easily take so many beautiful photos with the flowers, the mountains, the blue sky, the clouds and of course the Nepali people, old and young. Especially the look on the children’s faces – they are so sweet. On our treks, we keep running into children on their way to school. They will greet us with their cheerful laughing voices: "Namaste!" and will very obligingly stop to pose for a photo.

This morning we found frosts on the table tops, on the grass, the roof tops – everywhere it was frosted. In fact, when we went up Poon Hill it was close to zero degree Celsius. As soon as the sun sets, the temperature drops very quickly from 20 to 13 and then at night it drops lower and lower – around 3 to 5 degrees C.

We started to trek around 9am and reached Hotel Milan around 1.30pm. The village along the trek is so picturesque. After 3 days of 5 or 6 hours trekking, today’s journey was like a breeze. Lunch will usually be Dal Bat and at 3pm we went to see the Gurung Museum for Rs50 and then took a short tour in the village around the Hotel. It gets dark soon after 5.30pm as the sun sets around that time. Later we gathered in the garden with Jangbu and the porters and Jangbu started to teach us the song: Resam Feriri. Very soon I have to turn on my torch light to continue writing down the lyrics and translating the meaning of the song and singing it several times together with Jangbu and the porters. As I looked up in the circle of light, I found myself surrounded with delighted faces. It was a happy moment and have kept us warm in the garden which is getting cold as dusk sets in. Dinner time each of us ordered something different from the menu but always the same soup to make life easy for the cook. We had to make our order around 5pm so that it gives the much challenged cook ample time to prepare each and every dish. Salute to the cook! Hotel Milan topped all other guesthouse we have visited in serving the best food on the menu, and I mean all the food in their menu was yummy! Even before dinner finishes, we heard voices of singing and partying from the guesthouse nearby. There was a cultural troupe performing around the circuit and the singing and clapping and partying cheers went on until 10pm which is about time we all go to sleep.

see next day...Ghandruk to Chomrong