The Everest Bar and Eatery, Nepalese restaurant, Cardiff city centre review

From initial impressions, you might not guess that the Everest Bar and Eatery serves some of the best Nepalese food in Cardiff.

This no-frills establishment, which is located next door to Live Lounge in Cardiff city centre, offers a big range of 24 draft beers for all tastes, including Madri, Guinness, Tiny Rebel and Staropramen; a menu of pub classics like steak and chips and fry-ups; and three shots for £10.

There’s karaoke, spotlessly clean functional furniture, crystal chandeliers, and a 90s leaning soundtrack featuring Whitney Houston, Goo Goo Dolls and Tracy Chapman.

But there are a few giveaways about Everest’s Nepalese inclination.

The first, of course, lies in the name. The second tell is the understated wall murals showing the mountain’s snowcapped peak and climbers trooping up its side. Finally, there’s a photo on the wall of co-owner Dip Prasad Pun receiving a medal from Queen Elizabeth for his bravery whilst serving with the Gurkhas in the British army.

Everest is owned by siblings Dip Prasad Pun and Jhalak Pun, who originally hail from Nepal, and are both former Gurkhas. Jhalak, who we met behind the bar during our visit, casually informed me that he’d climbed Everest a while ago, as though it was the kind of thing you might do with a spare hour on a Saturday morning. Warm and friendly, and built like a real-life Jack Reacher, I think he could probably have bench-pressed me with one arm.

To drink, we ordered halves of their eponymous Everest lager (£2.50). Crisp and malty it was a lovely accompaniment for our spicy-packed lunch.

Everest’s compact menu of Nepalese cooking offers dishes like momo, Chatpate (a crunchy Nepalese salad of puffed rice, dry noodles and vegetables), set thalis, Nepali soup, and chow mein.

My sights were laser focused on the momo. Available in chicken, pork and vegetable varieties and served with either chutney or jhol, I opted for the latter option. 

It’s fair to say that they’re some of the best dumplings I’ve eaten in Cardiff. Ten beautifully steamed dumplings were delicately encased and filled with impeccably juicy minced chicken. Fragrant in their seasoning, I think they were most likely spiked with lemongrass and ginger. 

The decuplet of dumplings were sat in a whopping bowl of thick, creamy, nutty and slightly fiery sesame and tomato soup, also known as jhol. It was a proper winter warmer of a dish and a very good feed for £13. 

Mrs G very much enjoyed her mutton bhutuwa (£13.50). An offaly good mix of liver and kidneys were coated in an intense and earthy dry spice mix. A good squeeze of lemon provided zing whilst puffed rice offered contrasting crunch. A few of the bits of offal leaned towards the dry side so a couple of spoonfuls of jhol provided impromptu saucing.

Chicken fried rice (£9) was cooked with a delicate hand. The light and distinct grained rice had a beautiful wok smokiness, delicate spicing and was nicely flecked with tender chicken pieces and mixed vegetables.

We had a delicious lunch at Everest and their jhol momo is a Cardiff city centre cheap eat that’s definitely worth setting out on an expedition for.

The Details:

Address - The Everest Bar and Eatery, 8 The Friary, Cardiff CF10 3FA

Web - https://www.theeverestbareatery.com/

Telephone - 029 2297 0309

Base Camp, Cardiff, Indian and Nepalese restaurant review

There are a few awkward Cardiff restaurant spaces that I’ve always thought were doomed to failure but have gone on to confound my expectations.

Café Rio, Il Pastificio and Da Mara couldn’t make 2 Penylan Road work before it became the successful Scaramantica.

Jerkit and Munchies (who were infamous for their fried breakfast in a jar) were unable to make a go of 22 Crwys Road before Thai restaurant Tuk Tuk became long term residents.

Arguably though, the trickiest venue of all is 29 Park Place, a whopper of a 110-cover space that has been home to a string of businesses including Bacchus, the eponymous 29 Park Place, Cardiff Arts Institute, Steam Cardiff and Club 29. I’d contend that the handsome building’s size and its neither here nor there location have both counted against it.

Base Camp, a Nepalese and Indian restaurant which opened at the start of December 2024, is 29 Park Place’s latest resident. Could this be the restaurant to finally break the venue’s curse?

There’s an experienced team in place with general manager Ram Sapotka, who originally hails from Kathmandu, a veteran former manager of Whitchurch Road’s Mint & Mustard. In the kitchen, Rahul Chauhan was head chef at Mint and Mustard and Himalayan born Soban Singh Pokhriyal is formerly of London’s Dishoom.

With a menu that draws culinary influences from the Himalayas all the way down to the tip of southern India, I was drawn most towards Base Camp’s Nepalese dishes as there’s not much of this kind of cooking in Cardiff.

Eye catching dishes include lamb jimbu, named after the Himalayan herb used in its preparation, Khumbu noodles and crispy fried Lukla Chicken. However, if Indian cooking is more your vibe, then elevated sounding options include Goan fish curry, Hyderabadi dum biryani, and okra bhel.

We both ordered alcohol free drinks, not because we’re doing dry January, but because we had a big sesh the night before. A Virgin mojito (£6.50) was a good balance of fragrant mint, zingy lime and sugar sweetness whilst a creamy and tangy mango lassi (£3.90) was cleverly spiked with cardamon.

A quintet of steamed Nepalese momo dumplings (£8.50) were well stuffed with fragrantly spiced and juicy chicken mince. They were lovely dredged through a pot of excellent thick sesame and tomato dip seasoned with smoky and palate warming Nepalese timur pepper. A minor criticism, but the dumpling cases were slightly chewy around their sealed edges.

Cubes of gorgeously soft and creamy paneer (£7.95) had a good scent of smoke from the tandoor oven as well as a delicate honey sweetness and earthy funk of truffle.

Onto mains, and lamb Pahadi (£13.50) was rammed full of super tender slow cooked pieces of meat in a thick well-spiced gravy. The cracking curry was pepped up with the addition of batons of fresh ginger and coriander leaves.

Annapurna Himali Dal (£9.95) saw lentils and beans in an earthy gravy that was lightly spiced with turmeric, cumin and garlic. I prefer a slightly thicker dal but Mrs G thought it was bang on.

On the side, bhuteko bhat (£4.95), aka Nepali style egg fried rice, saw beautifully fluffy and savoury rice seasoned with a well-spiced masala and flecked with egg, sweetcorn and spring onion. It was a delicious hybrid of Indian and Chinese influences.

A basket of strikingly dark-coloured Himalayan millet bread (£4.90) was crisp, fat rich and an ideal dipping tool for our pair of curries.

Handily, Base Camp are also open on Monday evenings, and on a second visit, I once again focused on their Nepalese / Himalayan specialties.

For my main, Luckla chicken (£11.95) saw crispy fried pieces of poultry coated in a sticky, spicy and sweet sauce with onions and peppers. It had major Indo-Chinese chilli chicken vibes. 

To start, I had cig oen jimmbu (£8.95), delicious lamb tikka pieces with a really interesting herbal allium fragrance of jimbu, a member of the onion family. It was billed as a slow-cooked dish, but it seemed like a quicker cook to me. 

Meanwhile, Mrs G really enjoyed patta chat (£6.95), crispy spinach leaves with a kaleidoscope of yoghurt, mint and tamarind chutneys.

She also rated an earthy and smoky aubergine masala bliss (£9.95) for main. 

On both of our visits we were impressed by the refined Nepalese and Indian cooking from Base Camp and it’s clear to see the attention to detail and passion in their cooking and service. I really hope they break 29 Park Place’s curse because they bring something a little bit different to Cardiff’s restaurant scene.

The Details:

Address - Base Camp, 29 Park Place Cardiff CF10 3BA
Web - https://www.basecampkitchen.uk/

Telephone - 02921304333