You know those phrases you come up with, with your friends in the long hours of listless talks, and it just sticks with you. Before you know you’re throwing them in pictures, yelling them out it group shots and naming your little coup just that. Well, that is just the story with Booze Belly. For Rushant Timalsina and his friends it was a fun word thrown around in jest, one they used as a hashtag in their posts.
Right after their high school, Rushant recalls having some time to himself. “Everyone was busy looking for colleges and applying abroad. It was then I wondered whether I could make something of myself here in Nepal,” he says.
Turned out, it wasn’t just him was having those thoughts. With Ashish Basnet, a friend of his, he set out to find a place where they could bring people together through good food. However, it wouldn’t just be about food but about giving young people a space to build friendships, claims Rushant. And, with a stroke of luck, they discovered a property at the very center of Jhamsikhel in Lalitpur and called it Booze Belly.
But building a restaurant out of a ruined property was quite an undertaking so it took them 16 months to officially launch their restaurant. Today, at Booze Belly they specialize in drinks and Mexican food. The owners explain that they like Mexican food to Nepali food and can see it becoming quite popular. “Mexican food is healthy and really delicious. There can never be a better bargain than this,” adds Rushant.
Adding to the good food, the team at Booze Belly has explored various options to create a good ambience so that people enjoy spending their time there. Pertaining to the various needs of their customers and in quest of offering a diverse eating experience, they have a lounge, library, terrace dining, an aquarium, open mike nights, and witty quotes about food and drinks splattered across the walls.
Summer coolers
They have also launched a new project entitled “Dine with Memories”. Here you bring the oldest picture of your ancestors and they make a copy of it and frame it. If you do this, you get a 50% discount on one of your meals and through a monthly poll a winner is chosen and the prize is a free dinner for two. This is Booze Belly’s attempt to preserve and appreciate memories.
They also have plans of launching Nepal’s first ever one-meter pizza. And they hope to expand their portfolio of drinks as well. “We didn’t start Booze Belly as just another eatery. We had a vision and we wished to make it a reality. It’s still an ongoing process. We’re learning everyday and developing new ideas. It’s still all too new for us,” claims Rushant.
Through trials and triumphs, Booze Belly has set itself as a rustic and organic crash pad for friends and family alike. With a constantly evolving menu and projects to make the dining experience not just about food, Booze Belly really is what it aspires to be, “a place where sober strangers become drunken buddies.”
Chicken Navajo Taco
Price: Rs 450
This is a traditionally Mexican dish through and through. The sopaipilla bread serves as the base for the numerous ingredients that make this dish. The base is tinged with a mild sweetness and complements the Mexican chicken, lettuce, picante, fried beans and sour cream that come with it. The sour cream brings a wonderful lightness to what would have been an otherwise heavy dish. Do watch out for the bean paste though. It’s thickly coated to the bread and you either love it or hate it, there’s no in-between. This taco would definitely make for a very filling lunch.
Mozzarella Stick
Price: Rs 250
You can hardly ever go wrong with cheese. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise when this dish comes in, coated with breadcrumbs and all enticing in looks and stuns you with its sheer simplicity. These are cubes of frozen mozzarella cheese fried to perfection and served with a special pizza sauce. The pizza sauce is a show stealer, delightfully accompanies the umami of the sticks but also stands out on its own—slightly tart and pungent flavors, this is a sauce straight from the heavens. We kid you not. At its core, this is a simple dish but one that is also one of the most memorable.
Daiquiri
Price: Rs 450
This cocktail is the way to begin any meal, although we definitely wouldn’t mind making this an entire meal in itself. Mixed of simple syrup, lemon juice and rum, Daiquiri is a crowd favorite here. What hits you first in the drink is the zesty taste of lemon that wanes slowly. The aftertaste is one of sweetness and it won’t be long before you wish to take another sip. At Booze Belly, they also toss in a few mint leaves to add to the freshness of the drink.
Pizza Mexica
Price: Rs 550
This is essentially for those who love the essence of pizza but can’t tolerate the base much. It has everything that a good pizza does—cheese, olives and fried chicken. But while most pizzas use flour dough, this one is a little different. The result? You get a pizza on crackers. The crackers make the pizza crunchy and lend it a slightly saltier taste. The toppings are well spiced and balanced. Add to that the salsa that comes with the pizza that wonderfully calms the spices. A true delight, this one!
Crantails Mocktail
Price: Rs 380
Made with equal proportions of blue curacao, strawberry syrup and topped with cranberry juice, this drink is for those who adore everything sweet. It’s really sweet and thus good as an after-meal drink. The little slice of lemon thrown into the mix pierces through the sweetness but does not overpower the fruity taste of the drink. It’s a good syrupy drink but definitely not for those monitoring their sugar intake.
