An evening of Sikkimese food on MG Marg
MG Marg was pedestrianised years ago and has become the town's living room: benches, flower beds and a stream of families, students and monks walking in the evening light. Your guide, a Gangtok local, leads you through side lanes to the best momo shops, small Tibetan and Nepali kitchens and bakeries that have served the town for decades.
Along the way you taste steamed and fried momos with tomato and sesame achar, thukpa and thenthuk noodle soups, sel roti, a ring-shaped fried rice bread, and gundruk, fermented leafy greens made into a sour soup. We stop for Sikkimese tea, grown at Temi, the state's only tea estate, and for churpi, the hard cheese chewed slowly like a sweet.
Dinner is at a restaurant that serves Sikkimese home-style cooking: sha phaley, bread stuffed with meat, phagshapa, pork with radish and dried chilli, and nettle soup. Vegetarian options are good, and spice levels can be adjusted. Your driver collects you at the end of the street.
Questions travellers ask
Good to know
What food should I try in Gangtok?
Try momos with sesame-tomato achar, thukpa and thenthuk noodle soups, phagshapa, pork with radish and dried chilli, sha phaley, gundruk soup, sel roti and churpi cheese. Sikkimese tea from the Temi estate is worth buying. Many dishes are mild, with heat added through chutneys.
Is MG Marg pedestrian only?
Yes. MG Marg, Gangtok's main street, is closed to vehicles and has benches, gardens and shops. Smoking and littering are not allowed. Drivers drop visitors near either end, and the street is busiest and liveliest in the early evening.
Is there vegetarian food in Gangtok?
Yes, plenty. Vegetable momos, thukpa, gundruk soup, dal, local greens, potato and cheese dishes are common, and many restaurants serve North Indian vegetarian food. Tell your guide in advance and the evening will be planned around it.
Also in Gangtok
More hours to plan around
