Dubby Bhagat

Kathmandu:

Diana Kennedy wrote ‘The Cuisines of Mexico’ which was an influential cookbook by a food authority. She drew the line between what was real Mexican food and the Mexican food Americans ate. This latter cuisine she called “Tex-Mex” a term once used to describe anything

that was part Mexican part Texan. The year was 1972. Sudip Thakuri brought on nachos, a fiery starter made of refined wheat and cornflour formed into chips and then fried; served with a spicy tomato salsa and a bean sauce that had smooth highlights and a cheese sauce lest the salsa and the beans hit your palate too strongly. A delicious starter to a Mexican meal and one that Ignacio Anaya, a chef at the small Mexican town of Piedras Negras, assembled for some Texan ladies who were on a shopping trip in the 1930’s. “I would like to add more Mexican dishes to our menu,” said Ekraj Adhikari, “Nepalis would like the spice and the distinct ‘piro’ taste. And there are plenty of spiced beans like our kwati…”

Ekraj, Sudip and Chef Sudarshan Khatiwada, are part of a team headed by Robert over at K-Too in Thamel opposite KC’s, which I have decided has the best Tex Mex food in town despite

having or, perhaps, because of having a very small Tex Mex menu. Chef Khatiwada is just back from Saudi Arabia where he made Tex Mex food the most popular part of a multicuisine menu. Sudip and Sudarshan said that the burritos were a kind of fine roti-roll encasing marinated chopped chicken in orange juice, vinegar, salt and pepper, paprika, and a hint of chillies, while the package was smothered in sour cream, bean sauce, and salsa. The salsa was a scintillating mix of grilled tomatoes with coriander and onions with an alchemist’s brew of wondrous ingredients that classically include grated horse radish, chilli sauce and inevitably, cilantro; the burritos had a mingling of flavours that went from hot to chewy to the flavoured cool of the sour cream.

In 1930 Rosa Borquez opened one of the first Tex Mex restaurants in Los Angeles. She started

selling a popular item called “burrito” which meant little burro or donkey. For vegetarians, Ekraj assured, there was a bean and salad filled version at K-Too. “The tacos are fried tortillas and whereas the fillings remain same, one of the coverings is a musky spinach spread,” said Robert whose favourite was the taco covered with sour cream. Mine was the salsa smothered taco which had a symphony of tastes going from sweet to spicy. Along came the fajitas which were white thin rotis with an accompaniment of highly spiced chopped chicken that was almost but not quite tandoori with a kind of warmed salad flavoured with rosemary. “ You can get the taste of the rosemary if you let it stay on your tongue,” said Sudip. You eat the fajitas with your fingers and use a ton of paper napkins or you can be a pig like me and lick your fingers…

Tex Mex food is not about fine dinning but in a Texan restaurant like K-Too with the company of Robert and Sudip and Ekraj and Sudarshan you have fine moments that even the delicious margherita with its tequila base cannot wash away. K-Too is in the heart of Thamel and to feel like a conquistador call Ekraj at 4433043.