Himalayan Cuisine

A pleasant surprise, not too far from home... Himalayan Cuisine

Just on accident we stumbled across this restaurant. We don't spend much time in the East County but were on our way home from Parkway Plaza tonight. I did a quick search for restaurants in La Mesa and Himalayan Cuisine came up. What is Himalayan Cuisine? Well, it's a lot like Indian food. In fact, I could not tell you the differences. Their sign says Himalayan, Indian and Nepalese food.

This place is in a strip mall on El Cajon Blvd. You can see the sign for it on El Cajon Blvd., but the restaurant is farther in the strip mall hiding behind the 99 cents only store. It's a pretty big place, but it seems they probably use the larger back area for special occasions. We were seated in the front, along with everyone else who came in while we were there. There were 4 or 5 small booths and a few larger tables in this area. It's fairly dark inside, so if you need light to read your menu, bring one with you. The overall look of the place is pretty drab, but the ceiling included some panels with interesting designs on them.

What did I get?

Everyone gets a cup of lentil soup to start. It was very hot to the touch, but I would have liked a little more spice. We ordered vegetable pakora appetizer . Very tasty, shredded vegetable haystacks coated in what tasted like lentil flour then fried, served with mint chutney. They also have samosas which some may prefer, but those came with a tamarind chutney. I can eat gobs of mint chutney, thus the pakora.

I love lamb!!! I got the #29. Sorry, didn't write down its name. It is lamb in a slightly sweet and hot, flavorful sauce, served with your choice of Basmati rice or "bread". The waiter didn't specify, but I'm thinking it probably would have been naan. I got the rice and ordered it at level 6 for heat. I could have gone hotter and been fine. It was very good, lots of sauce, and I love sauces. The best part was that the lamb tasted like lamb. I've often been very disappointed when ordering lamb and getting something that I could not distinguish as being lamb. If I want lamb, like I often do, I want it to taste like lamb. If you can't taste that delicious gaminess, then you might as well order beef. My dinner companion ordered #46, I think. It was kinda like an Indian version of fried rice with lamb, served with Raita. It was pretty good, but of course I liked mine better because it was saucy. For dessert we tried the "juicy milk balls". Not really my kind of thing. Cake balls with honey or something really sweet in the middle, served warm in a very sweet syrup. I'm not a big sweet eater to begin with, and I didn't care for the texture, kinda like tres leches cake but denser on the outside and even sweeter.

He also ordered a chai tea. This is nothing like you get at the coffee monopoly stores. You could actually taste the tea, which had a grassy taste. The spices were not as pronounced as many people may be used to. It was served hot and unsweetened. After adding 3 sugars, he was happy with it.

They also feature a number of chicken and vegetarian dishes, all of which also sounded good.

As usual, whenever we go out to eat we bring home at least another meal's worth of leftovers. I'm looking forward to lunch tomorrow.

What's cool?

The waiters are very nice and it's pretty relaxing inside. Even though it's in a strip mall, all the windows except the glass door are covered with fabric so you can forget you're just steps away from the 99 cent store. The music playing was pretty interesting (if you're weird like me). It kinda sounded like a cross between native American and Celtic, different than I remember ever hearing in an Indian restaurant.

What sucks?

Nothing really sucked besides the dessert, but it just wasn't my kind of thing.

Rating...Good food and a nice change of pace.