Everywhere you walk in Thamel, you are bombarded by shops, restaurants, and hotels. Don't like the prices at one shop? No worries. The shop next door can probably give you the exact same thing for less. Our first hotel in Thamel charged us $50 a night. We walked to the hotel across the street to do laundry and found out that they were charging $15 a night. A good rule of thumb while you are here is to never forget to haggle.
If you are the adventurous type and like to try the local cuisine wherever you go, there is no shortage of those types of restaurant. If you do try the local eateries here, it's probably safer to stick with the Indian, Tibetian, or even the Chinese dishes. Once you start venturing away from those dishes, things can get very adventurous. We ordered a bowl of Italian Minestrone soup and a bowl of Chinese Hot and Sour soup from a local diner. The waiter brought us two bowls of soup that look deceptively similar. One had a more reddish tint than the other from the chili powder just added before serving. Samantha had ordered the Minestrone and thought that she had gotten the Hot and Sour by mistake after the fist spoonful. I traded her for mine. She took a spoonful from the second bowl and thought I never made the switch. It turned out that they both had noodles, both had peas and carrot, and both tasted sour and spicy. No doubt both came from the same soup pot.
The other thing we noticed about the local Tibetian/Nepali restaurants is that their menus are almost identical to one another. This fact isn't just true within Thamel. The menus are the same whether you are in Kathmandu, or Nagarkot, or Bhaktapur.
There are exceptions of course. We found a restaurant that was owned by an Italian. Their pizza and mushroom ravioli is even better than what can be found in a popular Italian restaurant here in Houston.
No comments:
Post a Comment