On one of our Road Trips with JJ last year, we headed up to Big Bear. During our visit, one of our favorite dining experiences was at a restaurant/bar named Club Bombay. The back patio was super dog friendly and the gentleman who served us was wonderful! At the end of the meal, he asked us where we hailed from and we told him “San Diego”. He smiled and said he worked and lived in La Mesa for a while. And said he was a Server at Himalayan Cuisine in La Mesa! Small world, right? Anyway, we enjoyed the food and the service and decided to check out Himalayan Cuisine when we had some time recently. Sadly, JJ couldn’t join us, but I’m sure he’ll forgive us, right??? Well, maybe not!
The restaurant is located in a mall off of ECB and Guava Avenue. In fact, Cathy did a post on this place back in 2008….though it was then Himalayan Cuisine; Indian & Italian (???) Cuisine. I’m not sure what changed other than it’s now serving Nepalese and Indian food.
Even though it was a weekend, the place was really quiet on a Sunday at 11 when we arrived.
I’m guessing it’s usually pretty mellow during this time of the day because it took a while for one of the folks working to notice us. But he eventually did and we were seated in the bar area. The restaurant is pretty large!
We had made the decision ahead of time to get the exact same dishes we’d had in Big Bear and see how the places compared.
Of course we got some Naan ($3).
This was a bit harder and chewier than we prefer. We enjoy our naan to be more crisp, mildly chewy, with a light pillowiness. Nice yeasty-mildly nutty tones though.
We had really enjoyed the Bindi Masala in Big Bear, so couldn’t wait to try the version here ($16). As you can tell, Bindi Masala features okra. We got this medium heat, but man…it was spicy indeed!
The version in BB had tomatoes in it; which added a nice sweet-acidity to the dish, it was missing here. This one was in your face spicy, the okra wasn’t as “neba neba” as we liked. This also seemed to have a lot of tumeric, or some similar spice which made it kind of bitter.
The rice was fine.
If a bit on the drier side.
The other dish we loved in BB was the Rogan Josh, which we also ordered here ($21).
This was pleasantly spicy, though the lamb, while being quite gamey, was on the chewier side. There was a nice almost anise like flavor; the sauce was quite thick with a nice tomato flavor. This was the better of the two dishes to us.
Though to be honest, we thought Club Bombay in Big Bear was actually more to our taste. Still, it was fun trying this place out. And when the gentleman serving us asked how we knew about this place we mentioned our experience in Big Bear. He laughed and said the fellow (sorry, his name has slipped my brain) had worked here for a bit over a year before moving to Big Bear.
Himalayan Cuisine
7918 El Cajon Blvd.
La Mesa, CA 91942
Current Hours:
Sun – Thurs 11am – 9pm
Fri – Sat 11am – 10pm