First, I was feeling quirky with a slight hesitation for something I have never tried of. And, also with the perception of the vegan food not being upto my taste, initiated the resistance. Some of my vegan friends offered me to try out some vegan foods for the first time. And, I accepted the generous offer and dived into the exploration. In this blog, I will take you to my journey of exploring vegan foods with my feelings
Nepal has its own food heritage based on different cultural and social regions. Also, the Indian and Chinese cuisines have made home for popular foods in Nepal. However, the blend in cuisines as per the taste preferences has kept on changing according to the region. If you ask, what are the most popular ones? Either it's the dessert or it's the ones with spices including meats. Spices are almost must-go ingredients in the cuisines. Here, the western foods like pizza, burgers, sandwich, etc are popular as they fit in with the spices. (not applied to drinks)
Here, I will take you to the most unpopular ones in Nepal: The Vegan Foods. Recently, I visited to two restaurants in Kathmandu Nepal with some vegan friends. They offered vegan food hunt, and here's the journey of exploration .
Annamaya
In the Early morning, we made our way to Annamaya.
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Annamaya was located in the roof-top of Gyan Mandala Building , a hub for diverse skills learning, restaurants, fitness spots, and travel enthusiasts. As you move upstairs every storyed, each section has its own niche market of restaurants, art classes, music classes, yoga-center, etc.
There was a fitness center beside the Annamaya, and Annamaya was solely focused on health and quality food. The zinc frame setup of the restaurant, and the minimal design was appealing for me. Not much of design, but still intriguing.
Friends from the local region made the order. Having no idea on the food, I had doubts if it could match up with my food-preferences. After few minutes, the order was in our table.
Mushroom kimchi buddha bowl (Rs 500) ingredients quinoa topped with kimchi (fermented cabbage, a korean dish), tofu, greens, sesame seeds.
Vegan cheese sandwich: Brown bread with sauteed mushroom,capsicum, greens.
Tofu scramble with bread (tofu cooked by mashing with some vegetables)
The food changed all my perceptual judgements. As in Nepal, it's all about the spices. And, it impacts your belly more more while traveling. However, these foods brought life to my belly. The taste was okay, but I felt so lovely,.lm must say, a new experience to my belly health.
Loving Heart
Loving heart is a restaurant in the Thamel street, Kathmandu. There were only two staffs working at the time as of the lockdown crisis. Gladly, one of our friend had worked as in the summer vacation, she decided to be of help. And, everyone join her as well.
The restaurant had good lightings, and ambience. It was a relaxing and calm place to be. Later we figured out, there was the roof-top seating spot as well. So, we decided to do the seating at the roof-top. One could see the concrete Kathmandu from the top, and it felt completely different place than the ground floor.
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We had our orders. Some common vegan foods were ordered including some unpopular ones to me.
Spinach ragi crepe (stuffed with vegetables, crepe made from millet)
Steamed momo -dumplings with stuffed vegetables
Seitan chilly (seitan is made from gluten, here vital wheat gluten, often used as mock meat)
It was great. I loved every bit of the food here. It was tasty, diverse ingredients. The Seitan was my favorite, it was something very well blended with spice. And as I love adequate spice, it was a great mixed up cuisines.
Kathmandu also became a visit to explore the unknown cuisines. And, I got few of my favorites as well. It was a great experience to have the taste of something I never heard of.
A trip to remember for a lot of reasons. And l, added the food hunt in that list as well.
Thank you for going through my blog.
Regards.