Taste of Himalayas (UTC)

I first noticed that Taste of Himalayas was expanding to UTC back in October of last year. They finally opened around April-ish of this past year. I finally made an effort to check them out  couple of weeks back.

I got there right at opening time on both visits. The parking lot at Renaissance Towne Center can be a bit of a mess during lunch since the lane sizes are small and the parking stalls quite cramped.

The interior is a very bright red!

On both visits, service was very nice and attentive.

I noticed that ToH had a lunch special menu with two dishes for $11.95......though taking a quick look, the bottom House Specials added on an extra $3. I had wanted to try both the Bhera-ko Tarkari and the Goat Curry, but that would hav brought lunch up to near the $20 range. So, I went with the Chicken Chilly and the Bhera-ko Takari.

First up was a huge basket of Naan...…nice and warm....

And a typical "lunch special soup", in this case lentil based, which was super bland.

Then my Chicken Chilly and Bhera-ko Takari (literally Lamb Curry) arrived. The portion sizes were reasonable.

I loved the colors of the dishes, which didn't look overly greasy. The Basmati rice was fragrant, but a bit on the "hard" side. The lamb was fairly tender, wonderfully gamey, the curry had a mild spice, with earthy flavors. A very nice dish. The Chicken Chilly, which I kind of consider to be a "Chindian" style dish had some zing to it. It was bit too dry for my taste and perhaps too "one-note" in flavor for me.

Still, not bad....I also saw something on the menu that I hadn't had in years, so I decided to return and just ordered from the regular menu.

First up, the Panner Pakora ($5.95).

Basically, fried cheese. I actually enjoy the rather firm texture of paneer, so I was fine with this dish, though I wish it was more crisp and less greasy. Also, the chutney provided was too sweet for my taste, but the really nice young man soon came to the rescue with some very good mint chutney.

The item(s) I really wanted to try were the Momo's. The last time I had Momo was in Madison over nine years ago....and before that at the Saturday Market in Portland...sheesh....over thirteen years ago! Time sure does fly. Anyway, you know I have a thing about jiaozi and similar dumplings.

I ordered the Mized Momo ($13.95), which came with three each of the Vegetable, the Chicken, and the Lamb dumplings.

My favorite by far was the Lamb Momo as it had a nice distinctive lamb flavor and the spices really complimented the meat. The chicken version almost tasted like a bland Chinese Jiaozi. The veggie was really bland and needed more seaoning/flavor. Sorry to say, the wrappers weren't up to task and were quite brittle falling apart easily, lacking in that slight fluffy elasticity that I look for in dumplings. After all that cheese, I ended up taking one of each Momo home for the Missus to try.....Her favorite? The lamb. I'd gladly have that again....though wish the wrappers were a bit better.

All in all, ToH is fairly pricey, but I enjoyed the items I had with lamb. I'll make some time in the near future to try out the goat.

Taste of The Himalayas
8895 Towne Center Drive
San Diego, CA 92122
Hours:
Daily 11am - 10pm

Comments

[Junichi]

Looks like a decent option for the area.

[Kirk]

Decent, but kind of pricey Junichi.

[kat]

nice!

[Kirk]

The folks working here are very niec Kat!

[Soo]

The naan looks great!

[Kirk]

It was a very generous portion as well Soo.