la.foodblogging

Hungry for Himalayan?

The Tibet Nepal House is a lovely little storefront-sized restaurant in Pasadena, as noteworthy for it’s uniqueness as for it’s serene atmosphere. Maybe it’s the Buddhist statuary, maybe it’s the painting of Everest climbers, maybe it’s the colorful kilims, or maybe me, but it just feels quietly comfortable here–except for the two screaming toddlers running around the restaurant–ours and our friends’. While I wouldn’t call it “kid friendly,” it’s not “kid unfriendly either.” The restaurant has been under new management since my last visit close to a year ago, and even though the menu and chef is new, everything was as good as I remembered. We noticed that there was almost no goat on the menu, which was what we always ordered, and an additional meat we didn’t remember seeing, yak.

I’d noticed that lots of pepole have slight trouble ordering from this menu, both because it is extensive, and because folks don’t eat Himalayan all that often. While Tibet Nepal House is essentially an “Indian restaurant,” where it is easy to order familiar Indian dishes (I’d had some lovely curries here in the past), we wanted to lean towards the “Nepalese” side of the cuisine, then got lots of assists from our friendly waiter.

We started with steamed lamb dumplings called Maasu Mo-mo (also available in chicken or vegetable), which were served with a ramekin of creamy cilantro sauce, achaar, which was so delectable, I didn’t even try the red chili sauce. The waiters also brought a dish of soybeans which, though tough and chewy, were nicely coated with oil, garlic and scallion. We all tasted them, and they were good, but none of us really loved them.

What we all loved, was the Kathmandu Sekuwa, chicken breast roasted in a clay oven, rubbed in the “himalayan spices” of mint, cilantro, green pepper, garlic and ginger. This was goo-ood. The meat was tender, and the seasoning was as delicous as it sounds. (I might just try this at my next barbecue…). Like Tandoori, it was served with raw onion and a lemon that had been roasted along with the meat.

We ordered this fish dish, which must have been a special or off-menu item. I can’t find it anywhere on the menu, and we found ourselves guessing that it was catfish. It was a delicious dish, the fish was light, it had lots of vegetables and a brothy sauce. It was not a curry, but more like “fish in brown sauce” from a Thai restaurant. We all “mmm’d” over this one.

Wanting to add a vegetable to the mix, the waiter suggested spinach, which arrived as just that, a nicely sauteed full-leaf spinach, that reminded me of ordering “spinachi” at an Italian restaurant. The spinach was just fine, but I think we all thought we were getting something a little more…Indian-restauranty.

We had to order yak, right? Annapurnayak is yak meat sauteed with green chili, bell pepper, onion, and Himalayan spices. We were all surprised at how conventional this dish was. The meat was very beef-like in appearance and density, the plate looked like an order of steak fajitas, and it tasted, again, very mild and more like Thai food than Indian. While it tasted good and we were all very glad to have ordered it, after a time, the criticisms rolled in from our party. The meat was very, very chewy; and at $16.95 just for this dish alone, we started calculating how much cheaper it would have been if they’d used the sirloin it resembled.

We also ordered two big bottles of Himalayan beer: Yeti, and Himalayan Blue. They were both great, very drinkable, thirst-quenching and familiar, while the Yeti was the more exotic tasting–slightly sweet and “richer” in the mouth.

We love this place, our friends really liked it, and we will go back. We ordered well of the high end of the menu, and the bill came to $82 for four parents and two toddlers with drinks/no dessert. They have two “Nepali Set Menu” options, which in retrospect, might have been the way to go. No regrets. In fact, there are lots of other items on the menu I would like to try: more clay oven roasted meats, sherpa stew (with goat), and Thukpa or “Tibetan Hearty Noodle Soup”. I could eat those dumplings again right now.

I must also mention that from 11:30-2:30 Mon-Fri, the restaurant offers an All You Can Eat Buffet. I doubt there’s much yak on that steam table, but if you go and it’s there, holla back.

Tibet Nepal House
36 E. Holly St.
Pasadena, CA 91103
(626) 585-9955

By Why We Type (see more of his posts).