Friday’s Featured Food: Dāl Bhāt With A View At Durbar Square, Kathmandu, Nepal 🇳🇵

When in Nepal, the dish Dāl Bhāt will raise its head a few times. In such a case, it’s usually better to try it, than backpack a country, leave it and realise what you missed. My main two meals when backpacking Nepal were probably textbook tourism but I didn’t care. I first tried Momo in a famous Momo Restaurant and then I tried Dāl Bhāt With A view…overlooking the famous UNESCO listed Durbar Square in Kathmandu.

Sometimes after a busy day of backpacking, you just want a decent feed with a view. That’s what I did. After backpacking the sights of Kathmandu, including the national Football stadium, too many temples to count and the UNESCO listed Durbar Square, I headed to one of the city’s rooftop cafes for dinner with a view.

The Himalayan Cafe, Kathmandu

In Durbar Square in Kathmandu you are spoilt for choice in terms of rooftop bars with a view. I chose The Himalayan Cafe. I don’t know why. I just did. So I went inside and walked up the six storeys to the top floor.

The Menu At The Himalayan Cafe, Kathmandu

I looked at the menu out of curiosity, but I already knew I would be ordering Dāl Bhāt. There are a lot of other things you can order here but I wasn’t into that. I was Dāl Bhāt loyal here.

Drinks wise, I chose a brace. Although I had my water in my backpack, I chose a salty lassi and a papaya milkshake. I remember as a kid, I’d always choose the most wacaday thing on the menu. The most obscure to me, one I couldn’t get anywhere else. Lassi is common in countries like Nepal and India. But Papaya milkshake, I had seen less often.

One of the chapters in my book series is called “Blueberry Muffinhead”. That comes from an old story when I was 12 or 13. I was with my family travelling from Newhaven in England to Dieppe in France. We were on the Stena Parisienne ferry. The menu in the cafe there stated “Blueberry Muffin 🔵🫐🧁£2”. As a naive kid, I thought it was going to be an English style bread muffin chopped in half with butter and blueberry jam on it!! I was so intrigued I ordered it.

But they didn’t have it!! The blueberry muffin eluded me. In fact, it didn’t exist. I was convinced the product never existed and would be impossible to ever find, unless you make it yourself. Later in life, I’d become quite Blueberry Muffin loyal to the point where I even named a Chapter in Backpacking Centurion Volume 2 after it – Blueberry Muffinhead.

Dāl Bhāt in The Himalayan Cafe

I ordered the Dāl Bhāt in The Himalayan Cafe, and I chose the spicy chicken to eat with it. The helping is huge and I loved it! The only sad point is that, I wished I was here with someone else.

I had to try and horse it down alone. It was too huge for me so I ended up taking it back to the Hotel Green Horizon and saving it for the next day’s lunch!!

It was so tasty though, delicious I’d say. I’m not a food freak but definitely the food in places like India, Afghanistan, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh are excellent. I wouldn’t say the same about Myanmar though!

I also savoured the tremendous, commanding views over Durbar Square, which itself is such a pretty place and brilliant for backpackers.

Here are the details of The Himalayan Cafe in Durbar Square, Kathmandu, Nepal 🇳🇵:

Here are some videos from Durbar Square in Kathmandu, Nepal 🇳🇵: