The following evening, plans for a Nepali New Year’s do obliterated by the mere thought of hundreds of loutish youths padding through the gallis of Thamel, as well as a reluctance to shell out a 1000 smackeroos to schmooze with the same people in the same places, I made very ordinary plans: dinner with a friend at New Orleans, Jhamel. The rains came thundering down as I trotted into the joint and, pleasant thoughts of aforementioned louts flashflooded into city gutters flashing through my mind’s eye, I walked past a depressed looking jazz band and joined my company. The place was packed (like every other place on the Jhamel strip, which continues to impress with the predominance of a Nepali clientele), and I settled down for the very last beer session of the year.

New Orleans Thamel and Jhamel has for me a reputation of being a safe option. The menu is rather limited, but the nosh is solid and the dosh aint’ too bad, relatively woofing. So a steak it was, with a decent pepper sauce. Increasingly one gets to choose how the ole slab o meat should be done, rather than settle for well-done and chewy, with a side of well-done and chewy chips. Steak culture is developing apace in Kathmandu (if not in the Khumbhu, where I overheard a trekker commenting on a ‘yak steak’: Hmm, it’s gamey). Padma Ratna Tuladhar would be proud.