Nepali food

What Nepali food is

Nepali food is quieter than Indian food. Less cream, less oil, and heat that arrives as a sharp pickle on the side rather than being cooked through the dish. The everyday meal is dal bhat — rice, thin lentil soup, a vegetable and pickle — eaten twice a day by most of the country, and the restaurant menu is essentially that plus momo.

What defines it

Two ingredients mark it out. Timur, a Himalayan relative of Sichuan pepper, gives the tingling numbness in momo achar. Jimbu, a dried allium herb from the high hills, is what makes Nepali dal smell unmistakably unlike Indian dal. Beyond those, the technique is restraint: gravies are thinner, dairy is rare, and fermented and dried vegetables like gundruk supply a sourness that Indian cooking gets from tamarind or yoghurt.

Recurring throughout: Dal bhatTimur pepperJimbuGundruk and fermented greensBuffalo in Kathmandu

How a meal works

Dal bhat is served on a divided steel tray and eaten with the right hand: pour some dal over part of the rice, mix it there, eat that, then pour more. The rice never sits sodden. Refills of rice, dal and vegetable are traditionally unlimited and offered without being asked for, so take a modest first serving. The pickle is a condiment measured in smears, not spoonfuls.

If it is your first time

Momo and dal bhat, in that order. Momo tell you whether the kitchen can cook; dal bhat tells you what Nepal actually eats. If jhol momo is on the menu — momo served sitting in a thin spiced broth — order that instead of the steamed ones. Gundruk will taste strange and sour the first time, and is worth ordering anyway.

Worth knowing when you order

• Dal bhat refills are usually unlimited — start small
• Ask for jhol momo if it is on the menu
• Gundruk and other fermented greens are the local flavour, not a novelty
• Nepali heat is in the pickle, not cooked into the dish

Dishes to know

• Chicken Momo — Nepal's steamed dumpling, eaten by hand with a bowl of sesame-tomato achar.
• Buff Momo — The Kathmandu default — buffalo mince, a thicker wrapper and a darker achar.
• Dal Bhat — Nepal's everyday meal — lentils, rice and greens, eaten twice a day.
• Veg Momo — The vegetarian momo, where the filling has to be seasoned harder to carry itself.
• Dal Tadka — Yellow lentils finished with spices bloomed in hot ghee and poured over at the table.

Regional variation

The Kathmandu Valley's Newar cuisine is its own tradition, with buffalo dishes, beaten rice and a repertoire most restaurants abroad never attempt. In the high hills the food shifts towards Tibet — thukpa, tsampa, butter tea — and in the Terai lowlands towards Bihar, with more rice and lighter spicing. Buffalo is the everyday red meat in Kathmandu, and buff momo is what most momo shops there actually sell.

Where to find Nepali restaurants

• Tokyo — 150 restaurants
• London — 85 restaurants
• Dubai — 67 restaurants
• New York — 49 restaurants
• San Francisco — 23 restaurants
• Sydney — 21 restaurants
• Melbourne — 16 restaurants
• Chicago — 15 restaurants
• Houston — 12 restaurants
• Manchester — 11 restaurants
• Abu Dhabi — 10 restaurants
• Edinburgh — 9 restaurants

Other cuisines

• Indian — Not one cuisine but a continent's worth, unified by how spices are handled rather than by what is cooked.
• Indo-Nepali — The most common restaurant format abroad: a Nepali kitchen cooking a mostly Indian menu, with momo on the side.
• Himalayan — High-altitude food: noodles, dumplings and broth, built for cold and thin air rather than for spice.
• South Indian — Rice, lentils and fermentation — a lighter, sourer tradition with almost no relation to a North Indian menu.