Taste From Everest

Taste From Everest Is Peak Curry Hill Dining in Manhattan | Eater NY

"I love restaurants that blend cuisines, and Taste From Everest does this spectacularly: located at 102 Lexington Avenue just north of 27th Street, it identifies as Nepali but also presents food from far northern India (including Kashmir), Indo-Chinese dishes, Mumbai chaat, Punjabi curry, and Mughal vegetarian fare, making it one of the most varied menus in Curry Hill. It's a project of three brothers from Lalitpur, Nepal—executive chef Gaju Chhetri (currently working in Australia), chef Gopal Chhetri, and front-of-house manager and beverage director Krishna Chhetri—and opened in 2020, managing to stay open during the pandemic (for a while carryout only). The front room feels like an informal café with a street-facing bar, orange walls, and a painting of hikers ascending Everest; the back dining room is more formal with a bar being installed, sturdy brown booths, gray flagstone walls evoking a mountain landscape, blue geometric tiles, and statuettes of Buddha and Ganesh. I was particularly attracted to the purely Nepali dishes: duck chili (choila, $12)—bone-in hunks bathed in a thick dark garlic-and-ginger paste— and a “traditional Nepali duck curry” ($17), a mellow brown stew scented with bay leaves, cinnamon, and cardamom. The momos are more delicate than the huge Jackson Heights purses, with mustard-greens options or chicken jhol momos ($13) served in an irresistible saffron-colored garlic broth that can be finished as a soup; the cod fry ($12), battered in chickpea flour and served with mint chutney, is abundant and pleasantly simple. Among the large menu of over 90 dishes you'll find tandoori poleko khasi (mutton) with a crumbly spice crust, Himalayan lamb hot pot ($19) — a thick tomato-laced stew with lemon and chiles — Mustang curry ($17) with boneless dark-and-light meat in a coarsely spiced sauce (one of the hotter dishes I tried), and vegetable dishes like alu bodi tama ($15) featuring bamboo shoots, potatoes, and black-eyed peas. The place serves halal meat, and because the menu is so vast you really should pop an Indian beer and study it before ordering." - Robert Sietsema