Nepali Food: 10 Dishes Worth Knowing (and Where to Try Them in Auckland)

Nepal sits between India, Tibet and China, and its food tells you so within about two dishes. There are curries and lentils that feel South Asian, noodle soups and dumplings that feel Himalayan, and stir-fries that arrived from the east and stayed.

Most people meet Nepali food through momos and stop there. Here are ten dishes worth knowing, and what to expect from each.

1. Momos

Steamed dumplings filled with spiced buffalo, chicken or vegetables, served with tomato-chilli achar. Nepal's national snack and the obvious starting point. We cover them properly in what are momos.

2. Dal bhat

Lentil soup poured over rice, with a vegetable curry, greens and pickle. This is what Nepal actually eats, often twice a day. It sounds plain and isn't: the point is the combination, and the way each element cuts the others. The Thakali version, from the Mustang region, is widely held to be the best expression of it.

3. Sekuwa

Marinated meat grilled over high heat. Nepal's answer to a barbecue skewer. Buffalo, pork, chicken or goat, marinated with ginger, garlic, timmur and mustard oil, then charred hard so the edges go crisp. Eaten with beaten rice or on its own with a beer.

4. Sukuti

Air-dried meat, usually buffalo. Dense, smoky and intensely savoury, somewhere between jerky and a cured sausage. It gets eaten as a snack on its own, tossed into a salad-style sadheko, or stirred through noodles, which is where our buff sukuti chowmein comes from.

5. Thukpa

A Himalayan noodle soup: hand-pulled or cut noodles in a broth built slowly with ginger, garlic and tomato, with meat or vegetables. Tibetan in origin and completely at home in Nepal. This is cold-weather food, which makes it a better fit for an Auckland winter than people expect.

6. Chowmein

Yes, chowmein is Chinese in origin, and yes, Nepali chowmein is its own thing. It's spiced far more heavily than the Cantonese version, cooked hotter and drier, and often finished with curry powder and a squeeze of lemon. Every momo shop in Kathmandu sells it.

7. Sadheko

Less a dish than a technique: cooked meat or vegetables tossed cold with mustard oil, lemon, raw onion, coriander and a lot of chilli. Sharp, pungent, uncooked-tasting in the best way. Mutton sadheko is the classic. If you want to know how hot Nepali food gets, this is where to look.

8. Wai Wai sadheko

Instant noodles, crushed dry in the packet and tossed raw with onion, chilli, lemon and spice. Wai Wai is a Nepali instant-noodle brand and a genuine national institution. This is student food, bus-stop food and late-night food, and nobody in Nepal is embarrassed about it.

9. Aloo dishes: chop and nimki

Spiced potato, two ways. Aloo chop is a fritter, crisp outside and soft inside. Aloo nimki pairs spiced potato with crunchy fried pastry. Both are teatime snacks and both are vegetarian by default.

10. Chatamari

Often called “Nepali pizza”, which undersells it. A thin rice-flour crepe from Newar cooking, topped with minced meat, egg and herbs, cooked until the base crisps. Festival food in the Kathmandu Valley.

So how spicy is it, really?

Heavily spiced, moderately hot. The distinction matters. Nepali cooking uses a lot of ginger, garlic, cumin, coriander, turmeric and timmur, that's spice as depth, not heat. Actual chilli heat mostly lives in the achar on the side, which means you decide how far to take it.

The exceptions are the sadheko family, which are built around raw chilli and are genuinely hot. If you're heat-averse, start with steamed momos and thukpa. If you want to be tested, order mutton sadheko.

Where to eat Nepali food in Auckland

Snax on Commerce Street, Auckland CBD serves momos, buff sukuti chowmein, sekuwa, thukpa, sadheko and the aloo snacks. Have a look at the full menu, or order for pickup or delivery.

First time? Buff momos and a bowl of thukpa is the order we'd put in front of you.