Food Food Food.. Can't Get Enough of it (part 1)

Before the trip we've heard from friends who've been to Nepal that the food there are really the basic which you will most likely eat Dal Bhat everyday (which actually, I've never eaten Dal Bhat before although it is widely available in Singapore) and there's no meat during the trek so we thought we will be vegetarian for the 11 days of trekking.

The istant mushroom soup bought in Spore

To satisfy our meat craving on some of the especially tiring day, we bought some canned food like roasted pork, sardines, hotdogs and also beef jerky.  We also brought along some 3-in-1 coffee and also instant mushroom soup.

We also pack in our favourite Nature Valley energy bar in both oats' n honey and crispy apple and also electrolyte tablets for the extra boost and for rehydration.

The day when we were at Kathmandu, we were actually surprised that there's load of big and small supermarkets selling all the stuff we brought over from Singapore and even more range at slightly slightly cheaper price.  Haiz.  Anyway, we still top-up and bought juice like mango, orange, pineapple in powder form for added flavour during the trek.

Our trek package will include all 3 meals during the 11 days and all coffee/tea during the day (note: unlimited supply, but not for cold canned or bottled drinks or alcohol).

Day 1 Pokhara -> Nayapul (1,070m) -> Tikedungha (1,480m) 

Breakfast: 2 toasts, eggs
Lunch: Fried rice & fried noodles
Dinner: Sizzling grilled chicken and steak, Apple fritters with custard

Our 1st meal during the trek was at Birethanti.  The menu contains no meat.  We thought.. ok, that's it! Start of our vegetarian journey....  We ordered fried rice and fried noodles which the rice was ok, but the noodles sucks.

The still not bad fried rice

Top: Beef steak
Bottom: Chicken steak

Dinner was at the lodge for the night and another surprise greeted us.  There's meat on the menu.  We got excited and each ordered sizzling grilled chicken and sizzling steak.  The chicken meat was tough but the steak was reasonable, though we can't expect it to be cooked to medium rare, fellow trekkers commented that it's better to be cooked due to the storage problem.

We were quite full then, but we had some craving for some sweet stuff, so we decided to order desserts! (desserts gotta pay ourselves)  Actually I don't really fancy custard, but we still decided on apple fritters with custard. This turn out to be heavenly desserts.  The apple fritters were crispy and apple still fresh in the dough.  

The custard thou not necessary, but did serve its purpose to add the extra oomph to the desserts.  Guess, we were too excited over it? that we forgotten to take a picture of it.









Day 2  Tikedungha (1,480m) -> Ghorepani (2,860m)

Big breakfast!!

Breakfast: 2 toasts, 2 boiled eggs/scramble eggs, fried potatoes, oat porridge/muesli

Lunch: Chicken soup, curry chicken with rice

Dinner: Mixed pizza & Grilled chicken with rice and fries 

Our 1st breakfast in the mountain and I was very impressed.  Such a big serving!  Am I really in the mountain? I order boiled eggs, so that I can keep 1 and eat it during the trek, boiled eggs is my comfort food during trekking. I started to feel this way during my very virgin trek at Chiang Mai Thailand.  The oat porridge was nice, it was like our Quakers oats, but it somehow taste very different from what I usually eat at home.











For dinner, we ordered pizza and grilled chicken.  The chicken was definitely better and more delicious than yesterday.  The meat was tender with nice sauce on it, yummy!  The pizza was not bad, very tasty, but I don't quite like the dough.  It was not the usual pizza dough we ate, but more of... hmmm.. very thick and a bit soggy....

Top: Grilled chicken (come with rice)
Bottom: "soggy" dough pizza

Day 3 Ghorepani (2,860m) -> Chuile (2,855m)
Breakfast: 2 toasts, 2 boiled eggs/scramble eggs, fried potatoes
Lunch: Mushroom soup, spaghetti
Dinner: Vege momo, Dal Bhat

I must talk about the mushroom soup we had for lunch.  Very tasty and "cloudy" soup base.  The mushrooms according to Maila was freshly plucked from the garden.  The mushrooms were of a species which we've never seen before.... looks funny thou, but nothing happened to us.. whahaha.  It was 1 delicious soup!

Top: the fresh mushroom soup
Bottom: spaghetti

I finally tasted my 1st Dal Bhat and I love it!!!!  I really love the dal.. luckily I've always like Indian food especially with much spices in a dish.  It was a vegetarian night.  It was quite funny actually.  When we reached the lodging at Chuile, when we walked past the kitchen we thought we heard the cracking of a chicken.  Kenn was excited, yes! chicken again today!!! But when we look at the menu, no chicken, no meat in fact.  Was it our ears playing tricks on us?

My 1st Dal Bhat

Day 4 Chuile (2,855m) -> Chhomrong (2,170m)
Breakfast: Rosti and apple pancake
Lunch: Fried chicken with fries and pork fried rice
Dinner: Noodle soup with vegetables and swiss steak

There's no set breakfast served here, so we each ordered a dish.  Rosti was good but the apple pancake sucks.  The pancake dough was yucky....

Maila told us that Chhomrong will be our last place for meat.  Thereafter will be vegetarian all the way.  Reason being that Chhomrong being a big town was the central of many trekkers where they came from different areas.  Any places after Chhomrong towards ABC will be too difficult to transport meat up and storing of these meat may be a problem as well.

Top: Popcorn chicken
Bottom: pork fried rice

The lodge we stayed at Chhomrong -- International Guest House served really nice food.  Our lunch was divine!  Fried chicken we thought we will get something KFC-like? it came out to be KFC chicken popcorn.. but still nice for mountain standard.  We love the pork fried rice.  the meat not very tough still tender-biting and it's so flavourful.

Top: Sizzling Swiss Steak
Bottom: Noodle soup with vege

The swiss steak left Kenn still drooling till now.  On hotplate and it goes slizzing till the cheese melted on top of the steak.. shiok!

Day 5 Chhomrong (2,170m) -> Dobhan (2,600m)

Breakfast: Himalayan kingdom breakfast, Bacons
Lunch: Curry Vegetables with rice, Korean maggi mee
Dinner: Spaghetti and spring roll

The meals of day 5.  You see that chunky bacons?? 

The lodge gave us another surprise today for our breakfast.  We saw bacons in the menu so we ordered it, thinking it will be like small thin slices for us to eat with our bread.  When it came, we were shocked!  There were about 6 big pieces for us!  Guess the bacon was to bid us farewell and tell us to say hello to vegetarian.
Oily, salty with chunks of fatty meat.. but we ate it wholeheartedly...

With such delicious food for breakfast, our lunch and dinner seemed so simple.  We tried Nepalese spring roll.  It look like curry puff.  Vegetables inside the crispy crust. Nice!



~ to be continued ~