Saturday, May 19, 2007

RESTAURANT: The Nepalese Kitchen

Type: Nepalese
Location: 481 Crown St, Surry Hills
Booking Required: Usually.

For Calypso’s birthday we had originally planned to attend the wonderful Benzin, but arrived to find that someone had booked the entire restaurant out for a birthday or something. With the success of the evening on the line I had to think fast. I have to tell you, loyal readers, that I was stumped. Despite being in the middle of Surry Hills I couldn’t think of anything that would be appropriate. But then I spied The Nepalese Kitchen across the road. I’d heard good things. But I’d also heard that it was usually booked out. Do we risk it? Calypso says yes.

We walk in and manage to get a seat because we’re there so early. Initially, I was worried. The place looked a tad dingy and had that “cheap” smell about it. But we were there so we kept on.

After a quick trip to the nearby pub for some wines ($1 corkage isn’t bad) we returned to look at the menu completely stupefied. There were meats and descriptions I hadn’t encountered before. So we opted for the trusty banquet option.

And it turned out to be bloody tasty. Starting off with a trio of dips, chicken dumplings (very nice) and some samosa sort of things, all very excellent. Mains continued with the quality; a succulent goat curry, an amazingly tender chicken and potato curry, a nicely barbequed beef salad and a nice eggplant and potato curry, which was surprisingly good considering I’m not big on eggplant.

While it was all excellent, there wasn’t enough for us four strapping lads. So we decided to go dessert. But not normal dessert, no, we decided to go two desserts each. Your average waiter would probably freak out but ours kept his cool, confirming the order in a relaxed tone. A pyramid trio of ice creams was nice (but not outstanding) and the fudge thingy was also quite good, without being spectacular.

The bill came and we were delighted. Good value for the tasty food on show. Next time we’d probably avoid the banquet and order more food from the menu, but apart from that a very successful birthday celebration.

RATING: Will return to

Nepalese Kitchen on Urbanspoon

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