My journey of taking wife to popular restaurant chain here in Kathmandu is still going on. There's much more to explore for her including mainly places, foods and beverages. Yesterday, I took her to popular dumpling chain here in our country known as Bota Momo. Bota is a Nepali name for plates made from the leaves of Saal (Shores robusta). The one big in the shape is called Bota, the plate where dumpling is served and the smallest is called Duna, where pickle is served (as seen in the last photo).
The circular plate is made by stitching the leaves of Shorea robusta with bamboo stick. The tradition of eating in such plates have been there since many century especially in Nepal and India. It is considered to be healthy eating in such plates. The leaves of Shorea robusta trees itself is used in making medicines. Serving in such leaf plate is also said to aid digestion of food.
My wife's favorite is crunchy MOMO, made by mixing steamed MOMO with breadcrumbs and then fried in oil. She told me to order that straight away for her. For me, I went on with combo meal so that I can taste all varieties of MOMO even though there are few pieces of each. The combo meal consists of Kothey MOMO( pan fried dumpling), crunchy MOMO and chili MOMO. Each plate consists of ten pieces.
Another important reason to visit this restaurant is the varieties of pickles they served and it is kept separately there in the middle of sitting area where you can go and take it as much as you want. I took four varieties to accompany with dumpling. One pickle was made from soyabean, another was made from tomatoes, the two at the upper side was made from chili powder, one was very spicy and the other was not. There were other varieties like green MOMO, beetroot MOMO but two plate was enough for us.