Following a few keen recommendations, solicited and otherwise, and also since we once intended to go here before but got side tracked by MIAH’s, fate finally brought us to the front door of the Kathmandu Kitchen – and this time we went in. First impressions were, I have to say, slightly tepid with the Snakey brew standing lonely on top of the bar informing us that, in all likelihood, it would be Cobra on draft. I think the interior could be best described as ‘traditional’ with a retro ambiance.
A fairly empty Thursday night, but the ‘KK’ is certainly on the side of high capacity but with a spacious feel.

Our waiter for the first part of the evening arrived swiftly and with Nepalese politeness and smiles delivered ‘wipe clean’ menu’s and a beer/wine list. A good selection of beers beyond just the draft Cobra so a bottle of the excellent Ghurkha beer was duly ordered – which of course they didn’t have and were ‘waiting for delivery’, personally I reckon ‘Godot ‘ will be getting there first. Bottled cobra though is still an adequate contender and gladly taken given the potential alternative of the Birdy-brew…

Anyway, fairly minimal menu which hopefully suggested quality over quantity in the feast to come. Nothing wrong with the popadums and dips so on to the starter. A slight own-goal then when my tikka portion (served with trad lettuce and tomato salad) was disappointing small even by novelle cuisine standards (which this wasn’t either) but at least it was well cooked which is more than can be said for the onion bhaji’s which were greasy and soggy in the middle. Not a great success.
Still, undeterred the mains arrived at a good pace. A fairly tasty chicken biriani with a good vegetable curry as a side. Next a new one, lamb rogan jalfreezi-max, least that’s what it tasted like and not what was ordered. The sweat spices and robust tomato were completely destroyed by a killer hot chilli flavour. Really not good and mostly left uneaten. Breads were ok, if a little dry in the case of the roti.

By this time Bret had had enough and Randdy definitely hadn’t. A quick check over the desert menu for quality assurance purposes (yes there was Kulfi and the ubiquitous penguin thing) and trip to the lavy-loo (which failed the QA test on account of the seat being displaced from the bowl by a goodly distance) was all that was required for making a fair assessment of our curried fare. It was quite cheap which is possibly why we by-passed it before in our search for excellence in spice.
The KK wasn’t really bad, it just wasn’t very good and ultimately preferable to a night out with the KKK (not that I would advocate that as any sort of bench-mark). Perhaps we were unlucky and another day might be different but I don’t think we will be rushing back in a hurry to find out.

RD

Randdy Dogoe, after some consideration, gave this establishment 50 marks
Bret Myri, with due care and attention to detail, voted a full 52 points for this restaurant