Like most springs, I spent a lot of my weekends volunteering at various FIRST Robotics competitions as a robotics judge, and that usually means I spend a lot of time staying at hotels in various smaller towns and cities around New England, but it also gives me a nice chance to try out a few places on my hit list. In this particular case, heading back home from a weekend in Salem, NH, this gave me a good opportunity to stop off and visit one particular Indian and Nepalese place in Manchester: Kathmandu Spice.
Kathmandu Spice opened on South Willow street about five years ago (I seem to recall the storefront being a tanning salon previously), in one of the small strip-malls located on the west side of Willow. Down a few doors from Al Basha Mediterranean Grill (also on my review hit-list), this part of Manchester seems to manage to support a good variety of interesting international restaurants. Kathmandu Spice caters to a “Himalayan” menu, with a good range of dishes from both Indian and Nepalese origin, and has a rather inviting dining room complete with a nice window so you can see the kitchen making naan and other dishes in the tandoor.
While both the Indian dishes were tempting, I ended up craving Nepalese a bit more, focusing on that part of the menu. First up was some chicken sekuwa, Nepali-spiced chicken, cooked on a skewer in the tandoor, and then tossed with a fragrant sauce. This was a great appetizer: the chicken was tender and perfectly cooked with a light char, and the sauce a nice spicy mix with hot pepper, cilantro, lemongrass, cilanto, and Sichuan pepper. And probably a few more spices that I couldn’t quite identify. This was a particularly nice start to the meal.
Next up, I briefly detoured back to the Indian side of the menu with some garlic naan. The version at Kathmandu Spice was quite good, with a good chew, a nice char, some bold garlic notes, and as a bonus, you could watch them cook it to order in the tandoor.
When it came to a main course, I couldn’t resist getting a thali with a little bit of everything on it. The platter I ordered had dal, rice, vegetables (a lightly-seasoned mustard green mix), Nepalese-style chicken curry, papadum, and achar. Overall, this was great: the dal was particularly flavorful. And the chicken curry both bold and spicy, with a particularly good mix of vegetables alongside the chicken. This was a great spread.
Carol, meanwhile, opted for the vegetarian thali, which was nearly identical to my own thali, but with a nice chana-heavy vegetable vindaloo in place of the chicken curry, which was also quite flavorful.
Really, I liked Kathmandu Spice. If I’m craving Indian food, it’s one of the better options in the area (I also rather like Taj India downtown as well). And if I’m craving Nepalese, I’ll certainly say it ranks up there with Cafe Momo (on Manchester’s north side). And the staff is particularly friendly and accommodating. I’ll definitely come back to try out more of the menu.
