Secret Nepali Hideout in Singapore

I wrote an email to one of my good friends, a Nepali guy studying in Singapore, with the million dollar question: where can I get real, and really good, home-cooked Nepali food here? There are many Nepali restaurants here, but as a South Asian food nazi I find them all lacking. He said there was one place, but that he couldn’t tell me its name or where it was, it simply wasn’t possible. After a great meal there, I’m starting to see what he means.

Because this place has no address and no name. No signboard. No menu. It probably doesn’t even have a restaurant license; it’s not really a restaurant, see. To get there, I had to follow someone who knew about it — through the back door of that famous shopping centre in Little India, through the back alley, left, right, left, right… until we got to a dingy apartment building. It almost felt as if I should be blindfolded. Up two flights of dodgy stairs. It’s always a pleasant surprise to come across something so pleasantly creaky and dodgy in a city where things tend to work too well, but this apartment building had a gaping hole where its lift button was supposed to be, and apparently there used to be a sign that said something to the effect of, “please stick your finger deep into the hole to press for the lift”. There was a door, and a handwritten sign stuck on it, saying in Nepali: “Nepali food”. I loved this place already.

It was the barest apartment I’ve ever seen. From what I gathered, this place is run by some enterprising Nepali immigrants who offer up a taste of home as well as temporary shelter to incoming Nepalis at ridiculously cheap (by Singapore standards) prices. There were only two tables; the other table was occupied by a bunch of off duty Gurkha soldiers. And the food? Nothing short of phenomenal. In Nepali restaurants here you get a small sampling of Nepali food, mostly the higher end dishes, and a lot of North Indian food too. But this is the only place to our knowledge where you can get real dhal-bat without going to Nepal.

Momo. I haven’t had a proper momo in Singapore, ever. These were good.

a thali with rice, dhal, some pickles, dried meat, and kick ass chilli.

They hardly spoke any English, and I hardly speak any Nepali, so I was lucky to have an actual Nepali person order food for me, because there’s no menu. A thali, many momos, three cups of tea (real chai!!), two cans of green tea later… we paid S$5. For the both of us. Either this is the cheapest meal in the country, or we got a Nepali discount this is what happens when someone else pays for your food and there’s no bill and you hear wrongly, it was $5 per main on average. This has got to be my favourite new place. I’m sorry I have to be selfish at not revealing where this is, but there simply is no way to describe it unless I draw you a map, and even then you probably won’t be able to find it; also since the legal status might be rather suspect, the entire Nepali community will probably be upset if their only source of home-cooked food is ever shut down. So if you desperately want to know, you’d have to click Contact and drop me an email to ask nicely :) Until then, charming places like these on the underbelly of my sometimes too-perfect city (or one that imagines it is), keep me happy to be living here, even just for a while more. Maybe I should do a post about Dining On Singapore’s Underbelly; this secret place will be one feature, the other will be my frequent Thai food jaunts in Orchard Towers (that building affectionately known as “Four Floors of Whores”). And some others. I’d go everyday if I could.

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