First impressions are everything. Within my first five minutes at Himalayan Kitchen.. 1. We were handed a menu with a giant piece of onion on it. 2. The restaurant was empty but they sat us at a small two person table (restaurant was still mostly empty when we finished). 3. To add salt to the wound, the seat at said two person table wasn't secure to the base of the chair, so when I attempted to scoot my seat up, I ended up slamming my finger in between the seat and base.. it was the most intense pain of my life and my finger was sore for DAYS. All because of this stupid broken chair at this stupid two person table Despite all of that, we still lasted long enough to try the food. I've never had Himalayan food before so I was stoked. We ordered a mix of Indian/Himalayan: - Veggie momos - Samosas - Chicken tikka masala for mi madre with garlic naan - Himalayan fish curry thali: so much variety here All was pretty good (and super affordable, total was ~$30?!). However, the mediocre service left a sour taste in my mouth. Giving us sauce containers to pack up our leftover food (when we obviously had more food that can fit in a sauce container) was the cherry on top. read more

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Ordered food from here a couple of times. Usually ordered their biryani, which was really good and less spicy compared to some of other places I have ordered biryani from. I landed up order chicken chowmein and veg momos from here. The chicken was rubbery and hard. Wouldnt recommend. read more

Himalayan Kitchen - Himalayan/Nepalese Near Me - Mountain View, California

Very bad food. We are vegetarians who went this place to eat but they served us chicken and agrued that its ginger piece. If you are vegetarian and want to try this place, never go to this place. They will serve you non veg and won't apologize. They offered free samosas for their mistake. We didn't take it and left that place and decided that we will never eat in a nepali place ever again. The staff was not clean and didn't even talk properly. Pls don't go to this place you will regret. read more

If I could give 0 star.. Told us the wait for takeout is 30 mins.. after almost an hour wait.. someone comes out of kitchen and says the order has been misplaced.. need more time to prepare.. Freaking never coming back to this place read more

Goat biryani used to be my favorite a few years ago. I moved so I didn't eat there anymore. Now after 3 years I ordered my favorite again. I don't know what happened. It's no where near what it used to be. Couldn't eat this. I don't know what was these things (look like fish bone). So disappointed read more

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Looks unassuming from outside but don't let that fool you. The lunch buffet is one of the best I have ever had, especially for the price. Their goat biryani is delicious! read more

I have been planning to visit this place for a while today is that day , as expected there was wait I think more than 20min , long line even at the buffet so you need ample time to dine here , let's talk about food , there was panic puri, both are delicious, biryani is good, they have multiple types of chicken dishes, pepper fry tasted the best. Rasam and spinach dal were top notch . I would recommend the place highly . Desserts and salad were there but I didn't have anymore space to eat . To cover all the dishes in the buffet I plan to visit few more times read more

This is my favorite indian buffet restaurant. Lamb ghost and butter chicken is very flavorful and full of meat. Buffet lunch comes with complimentary naan and chai. They refill the food fast. For the price I paid, I am very happy with the food and service I received. read more

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Good food, reasonable price and good service. We got chicken momo, chicken curry, malai kofta, chicken tikka masala, veg dum biryani, and tandoori roti. Everything was delicious and flavorful. I particularly liked the taste of chicken curry. It was not overly spicy and had a nice balance of spices n flavor. Ambience is just ok but all-in-all, I highly recommend this place. Seems like they have lunch buffet. read more

Our family really enjoyed the buffet lunch this Saturday. We liked trying different things. Everything we tried was delicious. There was a large variety of dishes including vegetarian options. It was crowded and lively with background music. The plates were promptly picked up as we worked our way to try as much as could. We plan to return soon. read more

Lunch Buffett, good eats, sort of crowded display or placement and thus a line. Self serve tea was good also. Aesthetically things have to replaced or updated like free standing serving table. Employees should wear belts; man harry arse crack whilst bent over is not appetizing Servers slow to bus plates however prompt if they think you're near finished and eager to take your utensils away before you have a breather for more. Good food; repeatable. read more

Today we ordered their food for delivery the first time, and were pleasantly surprised how delicious it is Will definitely come back for more‼ read more

In for lunch buffet with seven others. No problem with seating. Fresh food, well prepared. Good service. Lots of music which was lowered upon request. Parking was fine, but it was not plentiful. Goat curry and butter chicken in the same buffet--that's variety. Enjoy! read more

Great food, even for non Indian guests...buffet is great on a work day if u plan to doze off during your afternoon meetings!!!

Ordered delivery - butter chicken, malai kofta, naan, and Hyderabadi biryani. Both curries were watered down and weirdly sweet. Biryani was ok but lacking chicken. I am surprised to see so many other good reviews. read more

This store engages in bad business practices. I ordered a veg biriyani over the phone and made me wait after I got to the store for pickup. In all, it took them 50 minutes to prepare the food. I had also ordered a side of 2 boiled eggs. They gave only one and gladly charged me $3 extra for it. The convenience store next door is owned by the same establishment and the guy there charged me $5.99 for a pack of chips that clearly has the price of $4.09 on it. Although their food tastes consistently good, they are now starting to swindle unsuspecting customers. Never ever give business to these assholes. They deserve to go out of business asap. read more

Ordered chicken momos and punugulu The chicken in momo was completely undercooked and dint even seem like chicken meat 1/5 Punugulu was average could be better 3/5 Expected more flavour read more

GET THE MOMOS!!! They are so delicious and has a spicy kick to it. Comes with a delicious sauce for dunking. I got the veggie momos that bursted with flavors of garlic, ginger and green chillies along with the shredded veggies. The saag paneer is mainly for all the garlic lovers out there. The garlic flavor is extremely potent. There are big chunks of garlic that are visible. If your have a garlic obsession, then go for it. The chole bhature was really bad. I hated the sauce or the gravy it was made in. It felt like tomato ketchup. Probably the worst chole of my life. The one thing I do recommend here is the momos! You can't go wrong. Enjoy! read more

I have tried their Biryani, dosa , buffet , paneer butter masala and love it all! Good place for dinner take out!

Most times Yelp ratings provide a lot of meaning. But for this restaurant you need to dig deeper. The core of a restaurant is the food and Himalayan has one of the finest food tastes in the Valley. They are almost always full, with lots of customers having experienced that. While I encourage the management to pay some attention to the setup, organizing things better, improving customer service, etc; I would give 5+ stars to the delicious food. Just wow food and at reasonable prices. Go get some authentic Indian flavors. They nail that department. read more

I was really on the fence picking the stars for Himalayan Kitchen, but when it's all said and done I think my experience was more of a 3 star than 4 stars. My date and I were seated promptly and given menus to look over. The waiter also brought us cups and a pitcher of water, although he didn't pour it. We ordered Mushroom 65 and Punugulu for appetizers, Saag Paneer and Naatu Kodi Pulusu for entrees, one order of garlic naan and one order of regular naan. That's normal for 2 people, right? We also asked for the Saag Paneer and... other one... to be made mild, since my dining companion has the spice tolerance of an infant. After ordering a different waiter brought us plates, and mine still had some sort of bright yellow food on it. I can understand if the plate is chipped, or stained, but leaving food on it? That's disgusting. I asked for another and sorry to say the guy just wiped it off with a towel, whereas I think the proper thing to do is bring a different and hopefully clean plate. The first appetizer to come out was the Mushroom 65, and this dish was awesome. Crispy mushrooms in what looks like tandoori seasonings served with thin sliced onions, fresh cilantro, and lemon. It was delicious, I can't believe I've never had this before. My companion said it was a bit spicy, but she was so hungry she powered through it because seriously this mushroom dish is amazing. Next, the Punugulumuluyuluwupu came. These little fried balls of lentils and rice were crispy and not at all greasy, but they seemed a little bland. We each ate a few and agreed that while on a technical level they were great, they really needed some sort of sauce, such as the promised "house special ginger chutney", to set them off. Thankfully, about 3-4 minutes later they brought us out a 3 sauce sampler of mint, coconut, and tomato sauces. Why the pre-made sauces couldn't be brought out with the dish I can't say, but I wish they had since it made the little lentil hush puppies infinitely better. I was torn between the tomato sauce, which tasted a bit like a mild tomato curry, and the mint, which was very fresh and herbaceous. The coconut was basically flavorless and I didn't like it. As we were nearing the end of our appetizers, out came the saag paneer and naans, and I thought they had an awesome take on all of it. The naan was delicious, with an almost cracker/thin crust pizza type bottom that was just pliable enough to use as a scoop. The Saag Paneer wasn't as creamy as other restaurants make it, and it had a stronger herb taste, giving it a more fresh taste than is typical. Unfortunately, this is where everything started to fall apart for my dining companion. As I mentioned, she doesn't really do spicy food. While I would place this particular Saag Paneer at the mild-medium level, it was really blowing up her taste buds, and we had to get a salted lassi for her, which still didn't take care of the burn. Things took a turn for the worse with the weekend only Natu-Katu-whatever-it-was, which the server (the same one who gave me the dirty plate) groughly announced as having been made "medium spicy because we can't do mild". I don't mind restaurants sticking to their guns on preparations, if they feel like the essential character of a dish demands it be cooked a certain way, hey, be my guest. You make it the way you want to. But I do think it would have been a little nicer to tell us this beforehand, since we clearly asked for both dishes to be made mild. Since mild had blown my date's socks off, I decided I would try the dish first. Thank god, because she would have thrown an absolute fit if she had tasted it. When I order Indian food for myself, I always ask the chefs to make it "as spicy as possible", and I've asked for that and received dishes less spicy than this. After 2-3 bites my head started sweating, my eyes started tearing up, my nose was running... but this is fine for me! I love spicy food, and I ate the whole thing very happily. But seriously, we asked for it mild and I felt kind of bad eating all of the only meat dish we got, how hard is it to tell us before you make it that you won't make it mild? Also, I have to say the dish was a bit greasy, which I guess is somewhat unavoidable when you use bone-in skin-on dark meat, but was still suboptimal for me. Given the lightness of the Saag Paneer from the minimal dairy products used, I was hoping for similar with the chicken, but it didn't turn out that way. Looking at it holistically, there were several problems with the service and while the food was uniformly good, it is not friendly for people with lower spice tolerances and was a little disappointingly greasy. With tip it was about $43, which isn't bad but also isn't exactly a bargain. I would come back but only with friends who can handle spicy food well and are ok with grough and lackadaisical service. If they fix the service and iron out the spicy levels I think they would have gotten 5 stars. read more

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We're addicted to this place as we've been coming here every Sunday for the past 4 months. I'm not even kidding. My son loves their Goat Curry and Shahid Ghosh Biryani. My son didn't even like goat at the beginning and now he's obsessed. We originally ordered one order of goat curry but now we need at least 2 orders. We'll be here again next weekend. It's the same order every Sunday so hopefully they can spell my name correctly next time. Lol! read more

My friends and I tried their buffet on Saturday. The spread is pretty good with enough veg and non veg options. The Naan and paneer/chicken butter masala were pretty good. Also okra curry and eggplant curry are worth a mention! The peanuts in the okra masala took it up a notch in my opinion! The desserts and appetizers are standard affair and overall we liked the food. read more

We tried the takeout from Himalayan kitchen. The food itself was very tasty - we got biryani and chicken 65. The first order was actually wrong order (some vegetarian dishes). I called back when I realized the wrong order after I got home, the guy from the restaurant was very nice and apologetic to offer us a new order. Everyone makes mistakes, but I am glad this place handled it well. We would def go back to this place read more

this place is a surprise it is the best food everyone is nice they give so moch food I'm shook how good that place is the dosa was great the biryani is great read more

We walked here from Hotel Avante just a few buildings away. Huge menu and brisk business in take out orders. Seemed popular with locals. We got Himalayan lamb special - very good! I also got an eggplant that was a bit too spicy for me, but was unique compared to other Indian I've eaten. We also had Nepalese dumplings. Good prices and service. Definitely try this place! read more

Himalayan Kitchen - Himalayan/Nepalese Near Me - Mountain View, California

Himalayan Kitchen gives amazingly hot and spicy foods that come out quickly amidst a often busy and hungry crowd. This is not a crowd that is easy to please. You can feel the increased humidity in the room from all the sweat that is dripping down people's faces from the spice and the heat from the kitchen. The kottu parotta is one of our favorites here. Momos don't disappoint, but take quite some time to be cooked and served. I'm not sure why these take so long as they have been around for some time and should be able to predict how many will be ordered any given evening. Nice location near Best Buy in Mountain View. Go check this place out if you haven't.. you'll feel like you are on Cloud 9... or even higher-- like Mount Everest! read more

This is decent Indian food that is cheap for the area with large portion sizes. The chicken biryani is great, but would not recommend the fish curry. The curry had a sour aftertaste that none of my friends were font of either. The mango lassi was also off; the yogurt ratio was too much for the drink. Parking is easy to find in the plaza, and plenty of seating inside for both small and larger tables. read more

Himalayan Kitchen - Himalayan/Nepalese Near Me - Mountain View, California

Where has this place been all my life??? We eat Indian food at least once a week and had our favorite place in San Francisco. But since moving to the peninsula in 2016, we have struggled to find a restaurant that we really like. We've tried many in Palo Alto but were never blown away. After searching Nepalese food, we found Himalayan Kitchen and decided to give it a try. It's in a strip mall and doesn't look like much but we were BLOWN AWAY by the food. We now come one, sometimes twice a week. Here's what we've tried that we've really loved: - Momos - Samosas - Papadum - Apollo Fish - Chicken Tikka Masala - Saag Paneer - Aloo Gobi - Malai Kofta - Bengan Bartha - Fire Naan and Butter Naan The only thing we've tried that we weren't wild about was the Lamb Biryani. Also, the liquor store right next-door is affiliated with the restaurant. We stop in there to buy our Taj Mahal beer. The people at the restaurant and liquor store are so nice and hardworking. And one time, they forgot to give us our Chicken Tikka. When we returned, they were very apologetic and gave us TWO to make up for it. We love this place. read more

Disappointed with food here. They used be good but not anymore. I have recently ordered several dishes vegetarian and non vegetarian both and everything was disappointing. read more

I only order from this place when I need Indian food. Being an Indian, I crave for authenticity at times.. Biriyani, Chicken 65, Andhra Chicken fry and Naan are my favorites. I have tried other items from the menu.. My wife loves the butter chicken from here but I prefer more dry ones. The guy over there know me by person even when I shows up in the mask. I always ask/request for green chutney or tomorrow chutney both are awesome with naan or Biryani! Ohh.. forget to mention, they offer egg with Biriyani and one Biriyani is enough for a 2.5 folks of our size. I love this place and nothing going to stop me from going back in there! read more

I'm a regular customer who loves their biryani. I got biryani this weekend and realized the taste was different . Something is different and my request to the owner is please don't change anything. Especially if it's for cost cutting ( I sensed the rice might be different) . read more

The Biriyanis were good. We ordered the vijayawada. Goat talapakatti. Also chicken thalapakatti.

Really flavorful food. Kadhai paneer, malai kofta, aloo gobhi and samosas are just spot on even on spice level for my Indian taste buds. Paneer pakora was a bit dry but green chutney makes up for that. read more

We are from Evergreen, San Jose. Since we heard that the food is great here. We ordered biriyanis, appetizers and some gravies. My husband went and picked up the food but only after reaching home, we realized that 2 orders of Vijayawada Paneer Biriyani was missing. We called them back and they have asked us to come and pick it up or they can give the refund. It was a long to and fro drive for us, We are unable to go again and I dont eat nonveg and was hungry. But they said that they will come and deliver it to us and have delivered the food asap. Thanks for the response. The food was great as I have been told by our friends. I enjoyed their paneer Biriyani and it has become my favorite biriyani. Goat and Chicken biriyani was also awesome. We'll definitely order Food from here again. read more

Ordered Goat Biryani and Gongura chicken. Goat Biryani was Awesome! Must try!! Quantity of biryani is good enough for 2 ppl.

I order one egg and paneer biryani and they gave chicken instead of paneer, I picked up at 8pm as per there request and we started eating around 12am and both the biryanis were stale. I called the restaurant the following day, they told me to come and pickup the fresh biryanis and when I went there owner was arguing and he was so rude. Finally he was like please don't order from my restaurant again. Never coming back again. *not recommending this restaurant to anyone* read more

I took 2 biriyani ,and asked for Rita and salen more,He changed 2$ more for it,I think no one changed it, I also worked in restaurant,it's very read more

Himalayan Kitchen - Himalayan/Nepalese Near Me - Mountain View, California

My rating is for selective dishes only. They have the best Shaahi ghost Biryani which is only available on weekends. It's amazing and one of the best biryanis. They also have other biryanis which are decent. They also have double ka meetha which is a Hyderabadi delicacy and they do a good job at it. I have only dined in once and found it too crowded and chaotic. So my preference is takeout. There are other some other dishes like Momos, Hakka noodle which are ok. read more

I have been to this place twice as of now. I have tried the lunch buffet both the times. Though I did like the buffet the first time, but the second time was not that great. Felt that few items like the tandoori chicken and kababs tasted bland. The fish was too salty. There was not much variety in the desserts as well. I felt that the quality of food is not consistent here. I would think twice before visiting again. read more