Nepal handbook
Eat like you mean it
Food & drink
Nepali food is the hug you need after a mountain day — and knowing how to eat it well is half the pleasure.
Dal bhat power
Lentil soup, rice, curried vegetables, pickles — refilled until you surrender. It's what your guides eat twice a day, and on trek it's the freshest, safest choice: "Dal bhat power, 24 hour," as the trail t-shirts say.
Momos, the obsession
Nepal's dumpling comes steamed, fried, or drowned in jhol (warm tomato-sesame broth — the connoisseur's order). Buffalo is traditional in Kathmandu; vegetable everywhere. Trust the queue, not the décor.
A Newari feast
The Valley's indigenous cuisine is its own world: samay baji platters, bara lentil patties, choila spiced meat, and juju dhau — the "king of curds" — in clay bowls in Bhaktapur. We arrange home-hosted feasts on request.
On the trail
Eat what the kitchen cooks most — dal bhat, noodle soups, fried rice. Avoid meat above Namche or wherever it has travelled days without refrigeration. Garlic soup is the trekkers' altitude folk remedy; it can't hurt.
Chiya & tongba
Milk tea (chiya) is the national clock — sweet, spiced, constant. In the eastern hills, try tongba: hot water poured over fermented millet, sipped through a bamboo straw, gloriously warming.
Dietary needs
Vegetarians are effortlessly catered for — much of Nepal eats veg by default. Vegan needs gentle explanation (ghee hides everywhere); gluten-free is manageable with rice-based dishes. Tell us once and every kitchen on your route knows.
Water
Never tap water. Use purified refills (hotels and many cafés have stations), tablets, or a filter bottle on trek — and skip ice outside good hotels. Bottled water exists everywhere but creates mountain plastic; refills are the better habit.
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