What to eat in Nepal, and what dal bhat really means
Nepali food does not travel well as a concept. It has no single famous dish the way Thailand or Italy does, which means most visitors arrive expecting momos and leave having eaten dal bhat forty times. Both of those are correct, and neither is the whole story.
Dal bhat is a system, not a dish
Lentil soup, rice, a vegetable curry, a pickle, sometimes greens or curd. What matters is that it is unlimited — refills come until you stop them, at no extra cost. On a trek this is the single most important fact about eating in Nepal. It is why guides eat it twice a day, every day, and why the trekking phrase is 'dal bhat power, twenty-four hour'.
Momos, and where to eat them
Steamed or fried dumplings, buff or chicken or vegetable, served with a tomato and sesame chutney that varies wildly between kitchens. Street momos in Kathmandu are excellent and cheap. Jhol momo — served in a bowl of hot, thin, spiced soup — is the version most visitors never order and always prefer.
Newari food is the valley's real cuisine
The Newar people of the Kathmandu valley have a distinct and much older food culture: choila, bara, chatamari, sukuti. It is spicier, more varied, and far more interesting than the tourist-menu version of Nepali food. Ask us to book a Newari meal in Patan — it is usually the food memory people come home with.
Drinks
Masala tea everywhere. Butter tea at altitude, which is salty and takes adjusting to. Chhaang and raksi are the local brews, and tongba — hot millet beer drunk through a straw — is worth trying once in the hills.
Staying well
- Drink treated or bottled water, and skip ice outside good hotels.
- Eat where there is turnover — a busy place is a fresh place.
- Peel fruit yourself.
- Vegetarians eat extremely well here; vegans should still flag it, as ghee and curd are everywhere.