Bhaktapur · Food

A cafe occupying an old pagoda-style shrine building in the middle of Taumadhi Square, open 8am to 7pm daily. It is a tea-and-snacks stop with the Nyatapola temple directly in front of you rather than a serious dinner.

Ask for a khaja set and you get beaten rice with buffalo choila, bara (a fried lentil pancake), soybeans and pickles — eaten mid-afternoon rather than as dinner. It is the local habit and the best-value plate in the old city.

Buffalo-milk yoghurt set in unglazed clay pots and sold from small shops all over the old town for around NPR 50-100. Buy it late in the day when the morning's pots have set properly, and eat it on the spot — the clay is part of how it works.

The entry ticket covers the walled old city, so the khaja houses and momo shops in the lanes around the bus park and the west gate are outside it and cost noticeably less. Worth knowing if you are staying several days and only want to be inside the walls when you are actually sightseeing.