Himalayan: Nepali Cuisine Review

For this months BTD, it was Sarah`s turn to pick and you can always expect something a little different to get you out of your comfort zone with her picks, which is fantastic.

The June pick was…Himalayan.  I`ll be honest and say that when I read it was Nepali food, I had no idea what to expect. Immediately, I went on to scour the menu of course and I decided that there were at least a few things that I would like to try.

Judy couldn’t make it again 😦 It’s never quite the same when we can’t all make it, but it was a great night none the less.

For an appy, Jess, Leah, Sarah and I all got the Pork Mo:Mo and Melissa ordered the Vegetable Mo:Mo, I honestly think that I’m leaning more towards the vegetable version for a favourite, I really liked the crunch that it had although the pork was delicious as well.  The best part of this dish was the dipping sauce they were served with! Gorgeous cream tomato sauce, mmm. The restaurant also serves a complimentary serving of Papadum (it took awhile to google and figure out what they served) with 2 dipping sauces.  I wasn’t a fan of this, the papadum was pretty spicy and had a strange texture.  I didn’t enjoy the sauces either.  That’s alright, not everything is for everyone!

 For a main, I ordered the Garlic Shrimp, medium spicy.  The shrimp came in a bowl of tomato curry type sauce and it was served with saffron rice, flat bread and a traditional Nepoli side they called cold salad.  The shrimp was delicious.  I wasn’t expecting a curry sauce, but like I said, I really wasn’t sure of what to expect. The flat bread was delicious and great to dip in the sauce.  I also wasn’t a fan of the cold salad, it had potato and peas that I know of but not sure what else.

 Sarah had the Lamb Himalayan grill, the lamb was amazing!  I’m not sure if I ever had tried lamb before then but it was so good, it had a great charred, grill taste.

 For dessert, 3 of our group got the Mango Cream ice cream and I got the tropical fruit salad.  The ice cream was AMAZING.  The fruit cocktail was very different, but I enjoyed it.

 Dinner was great and I can’t wait to see where we are going next!

Edit: Forgot to comment on the fact that there is indeed parking at this location, so nice!!

Diner Deluxe

My husband has been to Diner Deluxe before, but I have not seeing as I have only lived in the fine city of Calgary for 2 years now, so we thought we should go check it out because….breakfast.

Luckily, the location is decent enough that there is some parking within a good walking distance, but we were lucky enough to get VIP rock star parking right in front of the restaurant.  Since we decided to go during the week, we also had no wait whatsoever, which was wonderful since I was starving!  The restaurant itself is really neat, there are cool little signs all over the place and it is pretty retro looking.  The staff were wonderful as well.  I try to make it a point to ask what is good at a restaurant, or to ask what they prefer between 2 items on the menu because they are the best source for this, who knows better than people who probably eat the food there all the time!

 I ordered the breakfast poutine with pulled pork, it was delicious.  It was very rich which is the only downside to the dish as I wasn’t able to eat much at all before throwing in the towel.  They use real cheese curds which is a huge selling factor to a girl from Ontario. I miss cheese curd, sad face. The hollandaise was great and the yolk from the egg just added the extra oomph you are looking for in the dish.  If there had been something else to cut the richness, I would have been able to eat more than 1/4 of the dish.

 Matt ordered the pulled pork hash, and he said it was awesome!  He did say there was too much mustard which I agreed with as that is such a strong taste that it can really overpower the rest of the flavours in the dish. He also made the comment on his meal being too rich and needing to have something in there to cut that.   It is a perfect brunch meal due to all of the different types of foods being incorporated into it.  I personally didn’t care that much for the apple relish, but it did add some unique flavours to the meal.

Overall, the meal was quite good and I believe the bill was around the $35-$40 mark before tip, so it’s not a cheap breakfast but it was good none the less.  I think next time I would prefer to try and find a dive diner as I am not usually looking for anything fancy when it comes to breakfast.  Rosemary hashbrowns and basil hollandaise, meh.  Just give me some good old fashioned breakfast!