Spices of Nepal — Restaurant in Des Moines

I noticed this place a few months back and have been meaning to stop in to check it out, and boy am I glad I did. While the decor is nothing to write home about, it looks like they just put up their decorations over top what was there previously, but it doesn't matter because you are here for the food anyhow. The place is spacious and is neat in appearance. The wait staff is friendly but may not be the best for recommendations, as it seems they like everything on the menu ;-)

We had the Chicken momos, Chicken curry, Lamb with mushrooms, garlic naan, gulab jamun, and rice pudding. They also provide some great side sauces to accompany your dishes.

The Chicken curry and Lamb with mushrooms, both had great flavors and the meat was very tender. I also really liked the appearance and presentation of the dishes, as the consistency and definition of the dishes were well defined. We ordered the dishes with a medium spice level, at first I thought it was too mild, but it built up to nice flavorful heat.

We ordered Garlic naan to accompany our dishes, they have several different flavors to choose from like onion and spinach, however it would have been nice if some plain naan would have been included with our dishes.

While we were wrapping up our dinner they provided samples of the gulab jamun and rice pudding desserts. The gulab jamun is a pastry ball soaked in a sweet syrup, I thought the consistency was a little thick and the syrup was a little too sweet for my liking. The rice pudding had a great almond undertone and was not overly sweet. I liked them both, but will probably order the rice pudding on...

Had dinner here with wife and friends as the "E" of our alphabet restaurant challenge. Parking lot was empty when we arrived at 5:30pm. One would think that service would be awesome given the lack of customers - yah, no. Drink order was quick but a good 10 - 15 minutes before she came back to take our order. The four of us each ordered different items and it took almost 30 minutes to get it out. By this time another family showed up, just us two parties. Now if everything was freshly cooked I could understand the time, but all the meat in each dish was dry and overcooked like it had been prepped a day or so ago and kept warm. I was looking forward to eating a lamb dish, which I ordered, the meat was bland, tough, dry and nearly tasteless if it wasn't mixed in with Indian spices and rice. Wife ordered chicken chow mien and it was like eating chicken jerky but with less flavor. Pricing was acceptable. For the wife and I the bill came to $35 with only water to drink. Maybe one day I'll go back...

I regret that I hadn't been here sooner! Everest has been open for a while and this is my first time. If you remember one of the other restaurants that have been in there, I like what they did with the decor. The place looks clean and simple with an understated elegance. Our servers were very good. Very patient while we looked over a menu of food we weren't accustomed to. And then the star of the show is meal. We both had lamb dishes that were in a spiced gravy type of sauce. Comes with rice and we added on the naan (a flat bread). Get the naan and dip it in the sauce from your entree. So good. Lamb was very tender. The sauces were out of this world with a good balance of flavor. Only drawback was our server was a bit slow to refill our drinks, but was attentive when we got his attention. Bottom line; I will be back and soon. Great job Everest....