Kathmandu:

Said Narendra Lal Shrestha, one of the partners of Rice And Bowl, “We are doing well. We have mostly local clients. We don’t have to worry about tourism’s ups and downs. We have families who come regularly and have become friends, and business guests who entertain here. Chinese food is popular in Nepal”.

But the fame of Rice And Bowl has spread, and the foreign community comes in as well.

Narendra Lal Shrestha has always maintained that they modify the taste of their Chinese food. But then modification in Chinese cooking has been around since the mid-19th century when over 25,000 Chinese working on the American railroads cooked and ate what Americans

considered exotic Chinese food made by real Chinese chefs. The food became so popular that by the end of World War II a non-Chinese called Jeno Paulucci made Chinese delicacies designed for the American palate under the Chung King label and you got very un-Chinese Chinese items like egg rolls, barbecued spareribs and sweet and sour pork. Before that Li Hung Chang, a Chinese ambassador, had his Chinese cooks to create the American Chopsuey to suit Americans and it is still popular worldwide. The name derived from the English world Chop (all the ingredients were) and the Chinese world Suey which meant bits which referred to the chopped beans, spouts, celery and meat.

Narendra is also the distributor for Nestle products including tomato ketchup which originated in China as ke-tsiap, a pickled fish sauce that became the much used tomato ketchup.

We chose to order Tiger Chicken which has ginger, celery, red chilli, spring onion with a flavour of red wine. Captain Bishnu Thapa, who was taking our order, brought it and it was a jolt to the system and delightfully hot on the palate. “It’s the only chicken dish with bones”, said Narendra. The Tiger Chicken with its green onions and growling hot taste was an excellent choice given the 14 chicken dishes. Watch out for a taste of ginger.

But being greedy we went for two more chicken dishes, The Roast Chicken In Hot Bean Sauce and The Canton Chicken Sezchuan.

Indrajit Lama served us The Canton Chicken Sezchuan which was slightly sweet until you ate a heady dried red chilli. The crunchy Chinese beans sprouts added another texture to the soft chicken and dry chilli. A juicy delight.

Typical of South-East Asia is the hot bean and the black bean. We had Chicken In Hot Bean Sauce which has ginger, garlic, chilli paste along with the hot bean mixture. At first it is delicately hot and then as the flavour runs along the tongue, it heats up. No burn but a distinct

bite.

We missed meeting Narendra’s partner Rajendra Prasad Shrestha, but they’ve been together for 12 years; he must be a really nice guy and creative too. You can meet him in the mornings.

Tika Ram Tamang served us our final dish, our salute to the first Chinese ambassador to the US, and in typical Rice And Bowl style the Chopsuey was the most unusual but delicious I’ve ever eaten.

A red sauce covered it and one would have expected the crisp fried noodles to be soggy but they were crunchy and would have been the envy of the Americans.

Bits of capsicum and chicken made each bite different to both the tongue and the teeth, and you went from soft and sweet to ala dente or resistant to the bite to soft again with the overlying sweetness that lasted all the way home.

Call 4260677, 4251678.