Himalayan Kitchen - Great Food, Friends and Apa Sherpa

Living in Washington, DC for so many years, and traveling frequently to exotic places for work, I have grown quite spoiled and used to being able to eat a lot of different ethnic foods. I love all kinds of ethnic food. I love spicy food. In DC I loved that I could have a different cuisine every day for lunch or evening for dinner if I wanted. Losing that smorgasbord of options was one worry I had about leaving WDC for Salt Lake City. I've been here in SLC now coming up on a year soon, but I haven't gone out to eat much.

We are finding some good ethnic dining options. There are a number of great Mexican restaurants here, including The Red Iguana. We even found a Belgian frites place. But Sunday night I was finally able to try a restaurant I've been excited to check out  - Himalayan Kitchen. The Himalayan Kitchen, as it's name suggests, is a Nepali restaurant.

Photo from HK website

Dear friends were in town for a visit and they had lived for almost three years in Kathmandu, Nepal before moving to Washington, DC where they are now. Moving from Nepal to WDC has been a tough transition for all of them, especially their two daughters who loved living there and really miss it. So, they were very happy to go for Nepali food, as was I. I used to travel to Nepal quite often from 2000-2004 and I always enjoyed the food. Sadly the last time I was in Nepal was probably around 2006 or so, and I was never able to visit my friends when they were living there.

The restaurant is in a convenient city center location, in an area of restaurants, so for those of you visiting SLC, it should be easy to find. The space is nice and fairly large. The staff are all very friendly and many of them are Nepali. The menu has both Indian and Nepali dishes. They have the classic momos (steamed or pan-fried dumplings). We tried both the chicken and the vegetarian and both were good. We tried several Indian and Nepali dishes and everything was excellent: butter chicken, baygan bharta, bindi, daal, etc. I can't wait to return.

We love Nepal, Switzerland and the US!

It was a wonderful meal with friends, and we even had a celebrity siting. Well, a SLC kind of celebrity siting. I still haven't seen an Osmond, and now I won't ever get to see poor Gary Coleman, but I did see Apa Sherpa. I wrote about him a few weeks ago. Paul had met him before and spotted him when he walked in and said hello. Then our friends' little girls, having lived in Nepal, were very curious and went to introduce themselves and ask some questions. Apa Sherpa, if you do not know, is a Nepali mountain climber, or sherpa. He holds the world record for the most Everest climbs. As of last year he did 20 and he is heading out this weekend to Nepal to do his next climb. The girls drew pictures of the Nepali flag (and in one case also the US and Swiss flags as they are both American and Swiss) and presented them to him and also got his autograph.

It was a great evening and I recommend this restaurant. Namaste.