Namaste Shangri-la - Anchorage Nepali, Indian, Burmese, Tibetan Restaurant

After class today, I biked over to Scott's office to return his camera. The glorious morning sunshine was gone, the trail around University Lake was muddy, but it was still good to be on the bike after yesterday's gloomy rain. Taped on Scott's wall was a flyer for Namaste Shangri-la Restaurant - serving Burmese, Nepali, Indian, and Tibetan food. Where I asked? 2442 E. Tudor. Calculating from my own address, I figured it was just east of Lake Otis.



So, with my wife in class, JL came over (his wife's in New York) and we went searching for Namaste Shangri-la. Turns out it's in the strip mall with Ichiban, UPS, and a number of other diverse shops. In fact, it's taken over the spot where Mumbo Jumbo was not that long ago.


While we waited for our meal, we watched this truck come toward us, go up on the curb a bit, then back up into this parking space. The fact that the right tires were up on the curb didn't seem to bother him. We're not sure where he went, but there was a one in three chance it was the liquor store on that side.
Our hosts were great. She is a Tibetan born in India. He's Nepali. And the food was delicious. I won't use my time in Thailand as credentials for saying this, because there was no Thai food. But J and I did spend a month in India in 2006 so I do have an idea of good Indian food. We also had Burmese food in Chiangmai. We were regulars at the Tibetan Kitchen in Portland during our six months there. And I've eaten in Nepal.

The food was really, really good. A significant portion of the menu is Veg. That was something we liked in India. I'm not a restaurant reviewer and won't get into the game of trying to come up with original ways to describe the food. It was good. Interesting flavors and textures. Light. They prepared each dish carefully - and dishes in that region of the world aren't simple to prepare.

You can see the three dishes we ate. I took the descriptions from the menu. The Thali plate is a combination of three vegetarian dishes that are special for that day. (I felt a little stupid because that was something I'd learned in India - that Thali is a combination plate and I'd forgotten. They have a non-Veg Thali plate too.)

The Thali plate is good for them because they can prepare the dishes fresh, but in large batches each day. Since a lot of the dishes take time, they're going to have to figure out how to get things out to the tables fairly quickly when people discover them and it gets crowded. The Thali will help with that. Even if they have customers who like to sit and eat slowly, they'll need a certain amount of table turnover to be profitable.

All three dishes tasted even better than they looked.

Does this sound like a commercial? Well, I have a vested interest in their staying open. It's a place with a good veg selection (she said mostly vegan). It's easy walking distance from our house. The food is delicious. The hosts charming. And the prices more than reasonable for what you get. The restaurant business is hard. Just cooking great meals isn't enough. There's the whole business of running a restaurant that trips up many great cooks.

So, Scott, thanks for alerting me to this place. And the rest of you, keep them open by eating there.



Driving on Tudor from the Seward Highway, go past Lake Otis to the second block on your right. It's the little strip mall. They are next to the UPS store and this tattoo parlor.



They set up a blog - Namaste Shangri-la - yesterday that has their menu.