Try out something new- check out Cafe Culture

TSHERING EDEN
GANGTOK: A new culture has hit town, well, not exactly, its “Cafe Culture” - a new food joint located on the way to the Secretariat, on your right if you are going towards the Secretariat, you cannot miss it. With a table set outside the cafe as well, inside it is cosy but not cramped, a place you might want to walk up to and just laze around with a cuppa coffee or tea and a good book to go with. The cafe serves what the owners, the husband wife duo of Anupama Gurung Thapa and Dushyant Thapa like to call ‘Himalayan cuisine’ i.e. a mix of Nepali, Sikkimese and Bhutanese traditional food. So at Cafe Culture you get a sandwich that uses the Tibetan traditional phalay [made out of wheat mind you] instead of the usual white bread, the popular Bhutanese dish Ema Datchi and the all time favourite Alu Dum along with other popular dishes.
The regular momos come in different hues at the cafe, green for vegetable momos which Anupama explains come from the spinach juice that they use in the dough while the chicken momos have an orange tinge courtesy some carrot juice. The cafe serves chicken and pork when it comes to non-veg. The open kitchen ensures that customers need not worry as far as hygiene is concerned.
According to Dushyant, the concept for the cafe sprung out of the need to fill this vacuum in traditional cuisine eateries around Gangtok and to help them survive.
Awishmaran Basnet, a chef by profession working in the US at present helped them out with the concept behind the cafe, says Dushyant. The cafe plans to start a six course meal in the days to come. They will also be getting 6 mountain bikes from TI cycles that enthusiasts can hire for a ride around the area, maybe even work up an appetite after placing the order. The beginning of a new culture, perhaps.