Quick Bite Review: Cafe Everest's Nepalese-Style Fast Food is a Perfect Lunch

It's easy to get lazy with your 20-minute meal and lean in on a drive-thru burger. But that’s how long it took from placing a phone call to securing Cafe Everest’s comforting brand of Nepalese-style fast food. Opened in Cleveland’s Bellaire-Puritas neighborhood in late August, the eatery dishes out Indian curries and biryani, a seasoned rice dish, that are full of flavor.

Start with the samosa chaat ($5.99), which is presented like loaded nachos except with Indian flavors such as chickpea, tamarind, yogurt, raita and cilantro, before moving on to the vegetable thupka ($7.99), a hearty spicy vegetable noodle soup. The perfectly grilled and flavorful chicken sekuwa is stir-fried with ginger, onions, garlic, tomatoes and cilantro and served with crunchy beaten rice and fried soybeans. But if you haven’t tried a momo yet, the crowd-pleasing jhol momo ($9.99) dunks the veggie- or chicken-stuffed steamed dumplings in an upper respiratory system-warming chutney soup.

Poured over noodles or rice, the extra broth adds spice and warmth. After a quick hit of the complimentary Nepalese Mukhwas, a colorful, sugar-coated fennel-seed based digestive aid and mouth freshener, you’re ready to head back to work, albeit better than before.