‘Best-in-town’ pizzas and more
THE MENU
Chef’s Special:
- Spaghetti Carbonara
- Ricotta Pizza
- Fish N Chips
Location: New Road
Cards: Accepted
Meal for 2: Rs 1500
Reservation: 014243333
New Road—the old shopping haven of Kathmandu and the cultural center of this ancient city—is also the home of street foods, lightning fast and cheap. Almost every other door opens to a place where one can get a quick bite. But what if one wants to spend some time relishing the meal in a nice environment, and also escape the heat of the commercial zone? The newly opened New Road-branch of the Black Water Restro and Bar is such a place where you can relax with your food, and at affordable prices too. The New Road branch of Black Water, located in the New Road Complex, has become popular for its beautiful ambiance and affordable menu. Sandwiches, burgers, noodles, pasta, friend chicken are some popular orders that Black Water receives along with its various offerings of pizza, which it claims to be “probably the best pizza in town.”
Intriguing storytelling
Fiction
THE VEGETARIAN
Han Kang
Publisher: Portobello Books
Published: 2015
Translated into English from Korean by Deborah Smith
Pages: 183, paperback
In the opening sentence of Han Kang’s ‘The Vegetarian’, Yeong-hye is described as someone who is “completely unremarkable in every way”. And it is this ordinary woman who, one day, throws away all the meat from the freezer because she has had a ‘dream’ and announces that she is going to become a vegetarian. Things quickly spiral out of control from there on as her husband, unable to understand her choices, drags in her whole family to try and ‘solve’ the ‘problem’. Yeong-hye’s father even tries to force a piece of pork into her mouth and she stabs herself in retaliation. But despite all the chaos that ensues, Yeong-hye’s decision remains rock solid.
The story is structured in three acts. The first part is about Yeong-hye’s decision and her family’s reaction to it, the second mainly revolves around her artist brother-in-law who becomes increasingly obsessed with her body, and the final one is about Yeong-hye’s sister, In-hye, who tries to help Yeong-hye even as her own family is falling apart in the process.
‘The Vegetarian’ is disturbing. It’s a little gory too. While reading it, sometimes you will squirm, ill at ease in your own body. But it’s easily one of the best books you will ever come across. The story, with all its wild concepts and ideas, has a certain appeal that makes it seem more like a work of abstract art rather than a neatly crafted fiction.
Thus it manages to stay in your mind long after, making you rethink and question everything you believed to be true, challenging conformism and making you wonder why the society puts such strict code of conduct on sex when it is the very basis of evolution.
But think and ponder all you want, you will, at the end of the book, still struggle to make sense of it in its entirety or you will take away multiple (often contradictory) messages. And it’s perhaps this churning of the story in your mind that makes this little novella so special, willing you to return to it in anticipation of a different take on it altogether this time around.
The breakfast ecstasy
Café Soma’s Baluwatar branch is probably the best breakfast destination this side of the Bagmati, the other being at its Lalitpur branch. Come Saturday and the café opposite the Russian Embassy in Baluwatar is filled with early morning birds in search of the best bites to break their fasts. The smell of coffee blended with fresh eggs, sausages, bacons, hash browns and all give the place an enigmatic aroma in the mornings, enough to create hunger pangs in anyone.With options for both indoor and outdoor seating, Café Soma serves breakfast, lunch and early dinner to its guests who comprise of expats and locals alike. A little bit on the higher side in terms of prices, the eatery reimburses every penny to its guests through its scrumptious food. Worth a try if you’re looking for a non-conventional cuisine in a calm and peaceful setting, and on being served with gratitude.
THE MENU
Chef’s Special:-
Crispy Chicken Burger
Soma Burger
Full Soma Breakfast
Opening hours : 8 am-8 pm
Location: Baluwatar
Cards : Accepted
Meal for two: Rs 3,000
Reservation: 4415792
Poetic prose
Fiction
HOT MILK
Deborah Levy
Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
Published: 2016
Pages: 218, paperback
We meet the heroine of Deborah Levy’s new novel ‘Hot Milk’ right after she drops her laptop on the floor, shattering its screen and thus her life, or so she feels. And you quickly realize she isn’t exaggerating when she says so because as you get to know the 25-year-old Sofia Papastergiadis better, you find there really isn’t much to her life that largely revolves around taking care of her mother’s petulant demands. In the novel, Sofia and her mother, Rose, have come to Spain in what is a final effort to find a cure for a universe of bizarre ailments (mostly imagined) that plague Rose. Sofia has her own set of ailments, most of which are psychological, and are probably a result of her terrible relationship with her mother. Back home in Britain, she is a barista, with a degree in anthropology and an abandoned PhD. Forever shadowed by her ungrateful mother, she has sort of stopped seeing her life as hers alone. But Hot Milk isn’t a story about sadness and lament, though there is plenty of that too.
At its heart, the book is basically about how Sofia fights the odds and, through her anthropological training, begins to examine her life and those around her, to undo the shackles that are holding her back and rebuild her life. As she learns to take risks, and behave however she wants to, she morphs into someone very unlike the Sofia you meet at the start who was just floating through life without much control over it. And it is this transformation that is so organic and, hence, believable, and which makes Hot Milk such a delightful read.
If you think it sounds like another coming-of-age story, you couldn’t be more wrong. Sofia is unlike any other character you have met and it feels wonderful to see the world through her eyes. She, in her weird ways, teaches you to look at life’s little wonders and take pleasure in them. Also, it helps that the language is beautifully crafted, making you want to reread certain passages over and over again.
Though Hot Milk isn’t a long novel, you will want to take your time with it because it’s almost like poetry, where each line can have many meanings and insinuations. And there’s a little bit of Greek myth thrown in, as an interesting side plot to an already wonderful narrative.
