Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Gangtok
Most visitors eat the same plate of momos five times and go home thinking that is the food of these hills. It is not even the food of one town. Here is what our own families cook, and where you can eat it too.
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Morning
A ring of rice bread: rice flour, sugar and a little ghee rested about six hours so it ferments, then poured by hand into hot oil. Crisp at the edge, soft and faintly sweet inside, eaten standing at a stall with spiced potato and sweet milky tea.
Photo: Mohan Khadka / Unsplash
Evening
Thukpa is the everyday bowl; in thenthuk the dough is torn into the pot in rough squares that hold the broth. In a cold house at eight in the evening it is the whole supper. We send guests to Kunga on Gandhi Road, a Tibetan family kitchen of about twenty seats, cash only.
Photo: Abhinav Kumar
Kalimpong
Phing, a gray-white mung bean noodle, came down the trade road and is now cooked with pork or cabbage in half the town's kitchens. The starchy liquid left over sets into phumbi, a pale jelly cut into slabs and tossed with chilli at market stalls.
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October and November
When mustard, radish and cauliflower leaves come in faster than anyone can eat them, they are wilted, shredded, pressed into an earthen pot for about a week until sour, then sun-dried. It goes into soup or a sharp pickle, so autumn guests taste that year's batch.
Photo: Ankit Bhattacharjee / Pexels
The chilli
Dalle khursani is the round, cherry-sized chilli of these hills, habanero hot. Say alikati piro, only a little spicy, before the achar comes rather than after. Kati ho? asks the price. Mitho chha, it is delicious, is worth more than a tip in a family kitchen.
Photo: Arindam Chowdhury
Gangtok
That is a Sikkimese table. The curry might be phagshapa, pork fat stewed with radish and dried chilli, right at 1,650 m (5,410 ft) in December. Lal Bazaar shuts on Thursdays, Kalimpong's Haat runs Wednesdays and Saturdays, and most of Darjeeling's Chowk Bazaar closes Thursdays.
Photo: Dinesh Ratnakar / Unsplash
Street food
A momo stall lifting its steamer lid every two minutes, sel roti coming out of the oil in front of you, thukpa at a rolling boil: nothing sits. We leave alone pre-cut fruit, thinned chutneys, washed salads and ice, and nobody drinks from the tap.
Photo: Monojit Dutta / Pexels
Taking it home
Hard chhurpi is indestructible; pickle in oil goes in checked luggage. Tell us what you cannot eat and what you would like to learn to cook, and we will write to the kitchens before you land.
Photo: Arto Suraj / Pexels