Himalayan Cuisine - in a word "Delightful"

That is probably as fruity a title as I have ever written, yet it is true and I will not apologize for it. I recently had the good fortune of, after spending a slightly less delightful number of hours with opposing counsel, eating at a restaurant called Himalayan Cuisine. In my travels (even around my own city), I am always watching the restaurants, to see if I am visiting a part of town that has a restaurant I need to try while I am there. For example, I am very seldom on the portion of Flamingo between Eastern and Maryland Parkway. Thus, when I saw Himalayan Cuisine, I knew that I must eat there the next chance I got. You know, carpe diem and whatnot.

So, I went. It was reasonably busy and in the process of expanding. The prices were quite reasonable. It had a buffet option that was less than $15, as I recall, and had a number of lunch specials that gave you options of one or two entrees "of the day". It was nice, because whereas most chinese restaurant choose their 10-20 most pedestrian dishes and make them lunch special options, Himalayan Cuisine apparently rotates through its menu for its lunch specials. On the day I visited, there were a number of vegetarian dishes and a chicken dishes to choose from. I selected two chicken dishes for less than $8. Each special came with nan, rice and a salad.

The lunch looked like this:

The salad was good. It had good greens and wasn't just iceberg lettuce. I have no idea if these are the greens being consumed by sherpas in the Himalays (my spidey sense says no, but it could be wrong, it also told me to buy an HDDVD player instead of blu-ray). It had a very interesting green dressing that tasted earthy, but appropriate.

Take a look at the rice. I'm not a rice expert, but this rice looks different. It was good, fairly glutinous (I'm guessing because it was quite sticky). The nan was very good. Slightly crunchy, slightly crispy and clean tasting. The yellow sauce is really why I called the meal "delightful". It was an unusual creamy sauce that was boiled with cashews in it. It was fairly mild, even though it looks like it might be a curry, and had an almost pumpkin-y flavor. I couldn't get a good picture with my phone of the menu, so I cannot even quote their description of it. Suffice it to say, the yellow chicken stuff was thoroughly pleasant.

The red chicken stuff was also delicious. It was mildly spicy, with the spiciness building over time. The chicken was astonishingly moist and tender. Another hit.

After the meal, I ordered dessert. Their desserts were unusual and the descriptions made it clear I had likely not had anything like them ever before. I ordered one to go and took it to work to eat later. Unfortunately, someone threw it away before I could eat it.

On the way out of the restaurant, there is a bowl of toasted fennel seed. You take the spoon, dump some in your hand, and chew it is a mouth freshener (or digestif ?). It was interesting and capped a very refreshing and, frankly, invigorating meal. I don't mean to get too hippie-ish here, but the food really did seem to have the effect of making me feel grounded and refreshed.

I think you should go there.