Meals on wheels

The concept of Pangra Express is very simple. The eatery operates from a standard airstream trailer. There are a few tables near this trailer where you can sit down and enjoy your food. The cooking and preparation process of the food all happens inside this shiny silver trailer and waiters bring the items you’ve ordered relatively quickly to your table.

Pangra Express

Location: Naxal, Kathmandu

Contact: 9801084777

Opening hours : 11:00 am to 9:00 pm

Additional charges: None

Parking: Available

Delivery: Through Foodmandu

Food trailers and trucks are quite common in western countries. And in the past few years, this form of mobile food business has been gaining popularity in Nepal too. Pangra Express is the newest eatery of this kind that launched about three months ago. Although it was initially located at Sherpa Mall in Durbar Marg, the truck shifted its location just this very month and it’s currently at Naxal in Kathmandu.

“The sheer fact that our trailer moves around the city and changes its location very often is what makes us different from every other food truck businesses in Nepal,” says Anyat Rongong, managing director and one of the founders of Pangra Express. And even though the Pangra Express team have plans of opening up branches, the location of all of the Pangra Express outlets will still change every three months or so. But Rongong reveals that all of the new locations of these trailers will be close to the previous location as they don’t want the customers who come to them fairly regularly to stop visiting them – which might happen if the new locations are too far from the ones.

Although it opened not so long ago, it seems like Pangra Express is already very popular among the young crowd in Kathmandu. It was raining very heavily on the day I visited this eatery. (At the time, they were still operating in Durbar Marg and hadn’t moved to Naxal yet.) Because it’s a food trailer, there weren’t many seating spots that were safe from the heavy rain and the staff had to move the tables to spaces inside Sherpa Mall (that had a roof above them) to accommodate people who had already ordered their food.

The menu at Pangra Express lists a bunch of fast food items and beverages that are popular among youth. Rongong reveals that this was done intentionally as their target customers are teenagers and people in their early twenties. The food trailer serves everything from burgers and fries to cup corn, sausages, and momo along with a variety of tea, coffees, and mojitos. You also have the option of adding extra cheese, spices or fries to your order and a lot of food items here also have a spicier version for people who like their food to be on the hotter side.

For this review, I sampled a total of six items at Pangra Express – starting with Mango Masala Express (Rs 140) and Rosie Express (Rs 170). Both of these aren’t listed in Pangra Express’ official menu and are two of their summer special drinks. Rosie Express is a chilled sweet drink with pomegranate syrup served with slices of lemon. I recommend you give it a try during a hot summer day to cool down as well as freshen up when you are tired.

If you are fond of popping a Hajmola or two after a meal, the Mango Masala Express might just be what you want as it tastes very similar to it. I think this drink can overwhelm people who aren’t used to incorporating fruits into pickles, curries or any salty dish. But if you have acquired a taste for those foods, you will like Mango Masala Express very much. I, personally, am not a big fan of Hajmola or anything that tastes remotely similar to it. But for some reason, I couldn’t stop sipping this drink. It was really good.

The Firehouse Burger (Rs 300) is a standard double patty chicken burger with tomato sauce, mayonnaise, and vegetables. This burger was listed as one of the spicy items on the menu but I couldn’t actually taste the spice. I really liked the Mexicana Chicken Momo (Rs 250) though. It’s a plate of regular chicken momo with a Mexican style sauce poured on top of it. The sauce, which had a tomato base and had a bunch of fresh vegetable cubes mixed into it, added a bit of freshness and tangy flavor to it.

My personal favorite out of all of the dishes I tried at Pangra Express was their Chocolate Brownie (Rs 195). It’s a new dessert item that was introduced very recently and hasn’t been listed on their menu yet. The brownie was served hot with a sprinkling of powdered sugar (in the shape of PE – that was meant to represent Pangra Express) and a mint leaf. I’m always skeptical of brownies because I believe they are one of the hardest desserts to get right. And most brownies I’ve tried have disappointed me. But that wasn’t the case with this one. Even though it was pretty dry and crumbly on the outside, it had a moist layer with melted chocolate on the inside.

Going by my experience, I can safely say that Pagra Express lives up to its tagline ‘where foodies thrive’. They serve good food at very reasonable prices and ever since I’ve been there I’ve been recommending the place to everyone I know.

How it started

The four founders of Pangra Express – Anyat Eric Rongong, Reecha Sharma, Sheryans Karki and Dipesh Kunwar – are all childhood friends. Rongong, who returned from Dubai about six months, met up with his old friends a few months ago and the idea of opening up a food truck developed during this meeting. After some preparations, Pangra Express launched in January this year.

Currently, Rongong is the managing director and the one who primarily looks after all aspects of Pangra Express. Sharma, who is a director, is in charge of marketing and advertising while chairman Karki looks into expansion projects and plans them out and Kunwar, also a director, is in charge of administration, human resource, and finance.