Our Man in Milliways - Everest Spice, Portsmouth
Created | Updated Jun 16, 2010
Everest Spice, Kingston Road, Portsmouth
And where three or four are gathered together, then they shall take curry.
- Book of Skanky, v1 ch1.
You'll probably guess this anyway as the series goes on, but I love a good curry. My slowly-expanding waistline bears testament to my passion, and barely a week goes by without at least one indulgence. I know the local curry houses so well, in fact, that it's almost impossible for me to review them—I wouldn't go and have a lamb rogan josh from Ali up the road because I know it's not the best, but his chicken pathia is to die for. Fortunately, I have friends in different parts of the country who like a good ruby as well, and whenever we get together we tend to indulge at the first opportunity.
So it was that on a recent weekend in Portsmouth, we found ourselves in the Beefeater in North End and, before long, we were looking for curry. The Everest Spice restaurant on Kingston Road seemed to fit the bill perfectly.
Atmosphere: I can't complain about our first impressions of the place, because we chose it based on a cursory look inside. There seems to be a trend to jazz up Indian restaurants with blue or pink neon lights and calling their food 'contemporary Indian cuisine', and I find that off-putting. We skipped one Indian on the same street for this very reason. Everest Spice has no such pretensions. It is primarily a Nepalese restaurant, in fact, and having visited Nepal on a couple of occasions I was pleased to see that the walls were adorned with Nepalese rather than Indian art. I was even able to identify some of the Himalayan peaks in some of the framed photos. The place was spotless; a lot of care had been taken to keep the bar polished, the tablecloths were white, and the waiters looked as if they'd just fallen out of a trouser press. Unobtrusive subcontinental music played in the background, as you'd expect. There was nothing exceptional in the atmosphere, but I'm a big fan of the simple things being done well. 4/5
Service: It was a fairly busy Friday night, but the service was very good. The waiters seemed to find time to stop for a chat with everyone, get food out quickly without forgetting anything and still managed to appear completely relaxed at all times. Our waiter even pretended to laugh when, egged on by my companions, I pretended that we all wanted chicken nuggets and chips because we didn't like spicy food. We had a good talk about Nepal and, when you leave having swapped email addresses with the waiter, you do feel a bit special. 5/5
Food: Compared to its more-established neighbours, Indian and Chinese food, Nepalese food is still in its infancy and is relatively unsophisticated. By that, I don't mean that it's bland or basic, but rather that it has not adapted to British taste buds. If Chinese restaurants served fish eyes and Indian menus made a big show of thalis, they probably wouldn't make much money, and Nepalese restaurateurs need to make some adjustments if they are to hit the big time, too. Take the humble momo, a Nepalese staple described on the menu as, basically, a steamed dumpling. That's not going to work. No-one is going to go for a curry and buy one, so if you're going to sell them—and they are far more delicious than they sound—you need to dress them up a bit with some clever language and make them the Nepalese equivalent of the pakora. It will be interesting to see if Nepalese food manages to develop its own identity and place in the British market over the next few years.
This doesn't mean that they're not trying. Most of the main courses have names such as 'Sherpa Kukhura' and 'Pakora Chicken' and, although they may be based on Nepalese dishes, the names have clearly been invented for the British market. This made it a little difficult to work out exactly what you might be ordering, particularly when the descriptions of meals being 'hot' or fairly hot' seemed a little wide off the mark. Graeme and I, while not curry masochists, like our food pretty hot and ordered accordingly. Our dishes came out fairly mild, and we asked for them to be taken back and spiced up a bit. To be fair, they returned as full meals shortly afterwards, laden with fresh chillies and perfect for us. The waiter's explanation that Nepalese food is not that hot was a fair one, and of course these things are relative and subjective, but it is important to pander to the average customer's palate.
Temperature aside, we were served four clearly unique dishes, each of which had its own character. There was no 'one basic sauce with varying amount of peppers and onions' here; thought had gone into the preparation and presentation of each, and I think that is very important. I would certainly go back for another Sherpa Kukhura; I'd just ask for a few chillies from the start. 7/10
Overall: Exceptionally warm and friendly service and a laid-back atmosphere make an evening at Everest Spice thoroughly enjoyable. Nepalese cuisine is still finding its feet but, when it's cooked and presented as well as this, it stands every chance of getting there in time. 8/10
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