FOOD SPY

(also published in The Himalayan Times) Chirag Bangdel is an artist and a writer. He has written regular columns for magazines and has authored four collections of poetry. His book of short stories and haiku, “Mist Around the Stupa”, published by Chautara Publications, The Netherlands was first published in 2009 and has enjoyed a reprint of second edition. As an artist, Chirag exhibits regularly in Nepal and abroad. His last exhibition, launched in 3rd April, 2012, “In Bloom” was organized and hosted by The World Bank, Nepal. Chirag also produces and hosts radio shows.

There was this series of chain reactions when I checked my email that day. Miracles do happen in otherwise mundane life….and there was this email from The Himalayan Times assigning me to be a food spy. I have always wanted to be 007, in fact when I was a kid, I derived so much joy out of “My name is Bond, James Bond” (or The name is Bangdel, Chirag Bangdel). But now I was not just an ordinary spy but a food spy. Among the many passions I have, food is certainly one. So when I received this email from THT, my stomach growled and images of all sorts of food , right from our everyday momos to delicate French cuisines floated in my head. Talk about inspiration. Okay, so I was assigned to spy on Manny’s Eatery and Tapas Bar in Jawlakhel. I chose to be there this beautiful spring Saturday night. And I took my entire family with me. I love playing the family man, you see. Manny’s Eatery and Tapas Bar is located in Shaligram Complex in Jawlakhel. If you want to get out of your crazy schedule and all the noise of the city , looks like Manny’s Eatery is the place. We were greeted by these beautiful lighting all over the place, especially the blue lighting that goes like a creeper all over the trees at the entrance. The huge parking space is certainly an asset to the restaurant. The space is so big, we could almost have a small kids’ football match here. As we entered the restaurant complex, we had just too many choices. Our options were – do we sit inside “The Tapas Bar”, which offers real well cushioned sitting arrangements with walls adorned with real art works, and classic rock and blues playing in the background, or do we sit in this beautiful central room that looks like a magical glass house, which is so brilliantly lit up and had these exquisite chairs and tables ? But we finally decided to sit outside. And outside there is this lush green lawn, surrounded by flowers, also a tiny pool with carps in it and a few funky earthern frogs in real chilled out postures (you have to see them to believe me!) The furniture outside is total wrought iron. There was this huge screen with a movie on. Life couldn’t get better but I back faced the screen. I wanted to focus on the food…..baby…..food ! The waiters came to greet us and I noticed they had real clean uniforms on. The one thing that really turns me off in restaurants is bad hygiene of the waiters. They were smart and polite. When I opened the menu, I realized how difficult my mission had just got. Now how can you choose when you like everything there? Eventually we decided to kick it off with corn fritters and fried calamari. They arrived soon. The corn fritters were delightfully light and soft and served with basil mayonnaise. Magically crunchy. And fried calamari were little pieces of squid deep fried to perfection. You pop one in the mouth to a delightful little crunch and then it melts away to heaven. After that we ordered “Spicy Buffalo Wings”. Now there is no buffalo involved in this. It’s chicken all the way (buffaloes don’t fly, stupid me!), cooked in this real nice tangy sour flavour. When it was dinner time, we ordered Grilled Pork Chops, Pra Kra Jien and Pepper Steak. The Pra Kra Jien is the fish of the day marinated and frilled in a foil pouch and today it was trout! It was served with fries and noodles. One word to critically analyze this food…. “ Yummy!” Soon what remained of it was just the fish bones. Quickest metamorphosis ever! And when the pork chops arrived, I didn’t know whether I wanted to look at it all night long or frame it and hang it on my bedroom wall (you know that I am an artist, right?) or dive straight into it. My salivary glands took over and with my steak knife I played the sculptor, dipping the pieces into this sauce and relishing the entire thing. The mashed potatoes and the vegetables at the side made a perfect combo. My uncle enjoyed the steak, as I don’t eat beef. It was tender fillet coated with fresh peppercorms and pan seared to perfection and served with roasted potatoes and vegetables. He told me it tasted as good as it looked. We didn’t order any dessert , full as we were. Now my final test, I went to check on the restrooms. There are many times when good restaurants overlook the restrooms, and a trip to the toilet can be so bad that you want to throw up what you paid for inside. But this time, the toilet was very clean, ample paper towels and liquid soap. Eric Clapton played some spacy guitar guitar lick in some corner. Manny’s Eatery and Tapas Bar is an excellent restaurant and I am so glad I spent we spent the evening there. Over and out. Mission accomplished.