Kathmandu Bar & Grill

Driving to work everyday, I do take notice of the restaurants on my commute.  I generally take a mental note and add them to the list of places I want to try.  Most times though, many don't seem that interesting and I never actually end up visiting them.  However, one place did catch my eye and I finally made the effort to dine there (in fact twice, to get a better idea of the menu).  The place is Kathmandu Bar & Grill on Scott Road boasting an interesting mix of Nepalese, Indo-Chinese and Western cuisine.  For those in the know, it replaced an ol' neighbourhood favourite in Kam Wah Wonton House.  

So on my first visit, we ended up trying a selection of Momos including shrimp, lamb and chicken.  We ended up with the panfried version although they could be had steamed, deep-fried, in soup, in chili sauce, tandoori, butter steamed and Mustang-style hot.  We loved these dumplings as the skin was thin with an appealing chewiness (while still being delicate).  My favourite filling was lamb where it was juicy with Earthy notes.  This was accompanied by yellow momo sauce and hot sauce.  I consider these a must order here.

We also got the Chicken Korma which was a bit different that most of the other versions I've had.  Yes, it was still cashew-based, but this one had tomatoes (that I much prefer). Even though this is generally a mild curry, there was a touch more heat as well as plenty of depth and sweetness.  The large chunks of chicken were moist and tender.  It was rich and creamy where it would've went well with a side of plain basmati rice (which we didn't order).

Instead of plain rice, we ended up with the House Special Mixed Fried Rice sporting soya sauce, mixed vegetables, chicken, egg, and prawn.  I thought this was so delicious, not only because it employed Indian spices, but the use of basmati rice created a different textural profile to the dish.  I found the fried rice ate dry (in a good way) and was not greasy at all.  There was good caramelization and the also plenty of ingredients as well.

We were curious about their take on Singaporean Noodles where if you notice, they did not use rice vermicelli as found in the Cantonese version.  In fact, the flavours were remarkably different as well.  Instead of the one note yellow curry powder of the Cantonese dish, this employed many more spices and as such, it had depth and a good level of heat.  I would eat this again gladly.

On another visit, I decided to try the Szechuan Fish.  Again, I should've ordered some plain rice to go with this, but I had another dish coming.  This was really good with large pieces of flaky fish.  As for the sauce, it was spicy (as requested) with plenty of garlickiness and tang.  This was so addictive and yes, I really wish I had a big bowl of rice to savour every drop of the sauce.

The reason I didn't get plain rice (again...) was that I wanted to try one of their Western dishes namely the Kathmandu Crispy Chicken Burger.  I would say this was a serviceable dish if one wasn't interested in the other items available on the menu.  Ingredients were fresh and the chicken patty was very crunchy.  However, it wasn't very interesting compared to the other dishes I had already tried.  In that sense, I will definitely come back, but only to eat their delicious Nepalese and Indo-Chinese food.

The Good:

- Impactful flavours

- Reasonably-priced

- Nice people

The Bad:

- Yes, I only tried one Western dish, but that is not what you come here to eat