KATHMANDU: Recently started by my old friend Chabin Shrestha and a new one Gagan Kunwar, Vesper located on the restaurant row near the Lalitpur fire station is six months young and incredibly popular. “Vesper,” said Chabin, “means evening star.” And though they are crowded in the evenings, they have a following in the mornings.

Outside bonfires warm the outer man while the food and drink stoke the fire inside. Within,

a lounge and a restaurant and

on Fridays Vesper have acoustic live music.

Chef Chhatra Bahadur Thapa, who is 29 years old, has worked in Goa, Bombay and in Thamel in Kathmandu and for a few months with the famous late Mike of Mike’s Breakfast fame. Along the way he picked up an impressive avalanche of dishes.

We were served by Saroj Shrestha, who fulfilled orders at once. One of us had a Bruschetta with goat cheese, I went for the Stuffed Olive Chicken described as Chicken Breast stuffed with green olive or black olive cooked with creamy basil pesto sauce.

Dharmendar Shewang, the singer, did a soft slow version of John Lennons Imagine. And Imagine didn’t begin to describe it. The stuffed olive chicken and the basil pesto sauce was creamy as advertised. Unbelievable. The Bruschetta was described as “the best bruschetta I’ve had outside Europe”.

The Avgolemono soup which

is a Greek egg and lemon broth is cleverly done because when you add the egg you remove the soup from the heat so it doesn’t curdle. At Vesper the egg lemon soup with the touch of spinach hits the spot perfectly.

The Teriyaki Salad had meat spareribs, topped with organic mix vegetables and one had to toss it with Teriyaki sauce which was first created in the 17th century in Edo, Japan and combines soya, sweet Japanese rice wine and sake the Japanese rice wine. Teri means shiny, and yaki is to grill or boil.

As we ordered, Saroj grew more and more tired and he thought we’d finished when he came back with a Club Wrap which is basically a Club Sandwich in a tortilla. The Club Sandwich was made popular in the grand old Double Decker trains in America. The wraps became popular in the 60’s in Boston but this is the first time I have

had the two combined and the

result was scrumptious. The sauce that went with it was mayo

and chilli which added to the chicken, bacon, cheese, onion, tomato flavours and the whole wrap was a dream.

The pesto sandwich had by a friend declared as being able to “Knock one’s socks off”.

We went for the rainbow Thai curries in the Asian selection of main courses which food writer Madhur Jaffrey declared she has an unholy passion for and the green curry built from warm to fury

in a tempo matching Dharmendar’s swift memorable melodies.

We were too full for the Chicken Handi which was strictly South Indian and cooked in the handi pot with thick coconut gravy. And we had to regretfully pass on the devilish Arabbiata Pasta which is so hot that the Romans said it had a distinctly “angry style”.

At the risk of exploding and

having poor Saroj throw things at me, I ordered a Chilli Con Carne which is a Tex-Mex dish and is kidney beans cooked with a little meat and served. Con Carne means “with meat”.

There are dishes galore on the menu which demands sampling, and we will do so.

As we were leaving, Dharmendar was playing Leaving on a Jet plane. At Vesper we altered a line to say “we know we’ll be back again and again and again...”

Call 5548179.