One of the best things about trekking holidays is the fact you need to keep your calorie intake nice and high. When you’re spending the whole day hiking, you need to keep your energy levels up! Another bonus? When you’re trekking in amazing countries like Nepal, the world of cuisine is opened right up. You’ll get to enjoy incredible foods that you’d be hard pushed to find back home. But if you’re plotting your next adventure and love your food, you’re probably wondering… what is the food like on the Everest Base Camp (and Island Peak) Trek?
We asked Brendan O’ Connor, who joined us on our expedition to Everest Base Camp and Island Peak back in May 2019, to share his food diary. “I love my food, and it takes a fair bit to sustain all 115kg of me, so having read a lot of blogs and watched videos from other trekkers online in advance of the trip, I recognised that there was perhaps a gap in the details of what to expect food-wise.”
Here’s everything you can expect to eat on the expedition of a lifetime…
What is the food like on the Everest Base Camp (and Island Peak) Trek?
Food Diary: Day 1
With adventure travel, one always needs to be flexible. There was a bit of a change of plan due to airport closures in Kathmandu, so instead we took a precarious cliff edge bus ride to Manthali to fly into Lukla from there. We stopped at a nice restaurant/guesthouse on the way and in order to allow the kitchen to prepare food for the group as quickly as possible, we decided as a group on two dishes that we would all order one of. The choice was between Dal Bhat or noodles (which were like Koka noodles with added vegetables, and those who had them enjoyed). I went for the Dal Bhat which was my first introduction to it and absolutely DELICIOUS. Lunch came to $2 with a 1L bottle of water each.
Considering cost to taste ratio, it was perhaps the tastiest meal I’ve ever had. Dal Bhat is the staple dish for many people in Nepal and varies from place to place, but this one consisted of a large portion of rice, poppadum, a few skinny fries, a spicy courgette mix, a bowl of dhal (lentil soup), a small bowl of spicy sauce and some spicy mixed shredded mushroom. I really loved it! It also came with some form of watery yoghurt, which we were under doctor’s orders to avoid due to uncertainty over the storage of dairy products.
It was genuinely one of the nicest lunches I’ve ever had.
We ate dinner at our hotel in Manthali; I went for eggs and chips and got a piece of banana for dessert. We were asked if we were still hungry and wanted “some rice”; of course I said yes, and they brought out another full Dal Bhat! The courgette curry was replaced with cauliflower this time, with cabbage as the other spicy side. It wasn’t quite as nice as earlier but still tasty!
Food Diary: Day 2
The group got up at 4am and had a quick protein bar that we had packed from home for brekkie! We enjoyed an incredible flight to Lukla, with some turbulence / stomach flips on way but a very smooth landing. Today we got our first glimpse of the extensive menus typical of hotels or tea houses on the trek at a hotel in Lukla, and for second breakfast I chose option with tea, juice (like dilute or powdered mango), porridge (really good!) a cheese toastie, “hash browns” which were some fried potatoes, and a little bit of veg on the side. It hit the spot anyway!
We had lunch on arrival in Phakding, in really nice tea house with a massive menu. I tried vegetable Momo, dumplings which can be eaten boiled or fired and served with a spicy sauce. I went for the fried (everything tastes better fried surely?!)
You get two courses at dinner every day, so you can choose a starter and main course or main and dessert. Today felt like a day for savoury, so I went for RaRa soup with egg to start, which is like Koka noodles with some veg and shredded omelette on top. This was filling in itself, and at the same time I also got a bowl of wholesome garlic soup as part of the main I chose, which was the house special – pasta with tomato sauce and cheese, some fried potato, fried egg and veg.
You also get tea or coffee at each meal, with lots of choice at most tea houses – popular selections in our group were black tea or coffee, milk added to either (pretty sweet), mint tea or ginger, lemon and honey tea (which actually for the most part had real shredded ginger in it!)
Food Diary: Day 3
Went for the house special breakfast today – two slices of toast (although cooked, it’s never really browned on the trek like you might in a toaster at home). This came with a few roast potatoes, a fried egg (nice runny yolk) and some “baked beans”, which were like big broad beans in some kind of watery tomato sauce. Fuel for the long days trekking ahead!
We stopped at a tea house mid-morning for… you guessed it, some tea! The incredible local guides have all the tea houses on the trip booked in advance, meaning we got the best in each village, and they also order our lunch ahead at tea houses on the trail to minimise delays. Also, with 12 in our group, having just 3 options means the cooks can prepare things more quickly.
In the teahouses we stay in, we have been allowed to pick anything we want from the menu at night.Eight of the group, including myself, went for the Sherpa stew for lunch. I was initially suffering from extreme food envy when the other four peoples giant plates of chips and fried eggs arrived out, but the Sherpa stew was actually very wholesome and filling, and I got seconds! It is kind of like the garlic soup, with carrot, spring onions, pak choi, potato and pasta. It helped with hydration and I was also glad to not be overly full for the rough climb to Namche.
At the Green Tara hotel in Namche, I decided I would make up for my food envy of yesterday and try the roast potatoes, egg and veg. This was a much smaller portion than people got in Sherpa guide the previous day, but very nice. Luckily for me, I decided that I needed a dessert after the uphill trek today, so went for a Snickers pie; a deep-fried snickers in batter with maple syrup over it. This was life-alteringly delicious, and I was delighted to help my Dad finish off his Mars pie too!
We tend to put our dinner order in when we get to the tea house and have another tea, with dinner generally being about 7pm. After dinner, and more tea, we get the menus to order breakfast for the morning, which was usually around 7am.
Food Diary: Day 4
For breakfast, I had Tibetan bread with fried eggs. Tibetan bread is a thick, deep-fried, sweet dough. Quite nice!
For lunch, I had vegetable spring rolls & chips. It was a lighter batter than you would get at home, with noodles and veg inside.
At dinner, I decided to try traditional Sherpa food, so I went for T-Momo – steamed bread with mushroom and potato curry. The bread doesn’t have much taste, but is light and slightly sweet. It comes with a tomato dipping sauce and the curry was tasty.
Food Diary: Day 5
I started the day with toast and an omelette. The bread here isn’t quite like home, it’s smaller and slightly sweeter. But it does the trick!
Lunchtime! I had a vegetable and cheese toasted sandwich with chips. This was a really tasty sandwich and chips at almost 4000m; I would have been happy getting this at a café at home!
Dal Bhat for dinner. It was nice – it didn’t have the different spicy sides like before but, as always, I got seconds!
Food Diary: Day 6
By this point, I was finding that my appetite was getting less as I gained altitude, but I was still managing to eat full meals.
At breakfast, I had toast with fried eggs. The toast had a line across it like an old-school toasted sandwich machine from home! Hard yolks on the eggs but beggars can’t be choosers.
Lunch was veg fried rice with egg – pretty bland but fine, and I added plenty of the green chilli sauce that is ubiquitous on every table. The egg is like an omelette that was then chopped.
That night I had hash brown with cheese – the first really disgusting meal I’d had. Another man in the group got it and didn’t finish it either. Oily, shredded potatoes and onion, fried with cheese melted over that had solidified again. Really unpalatable. I would advise against getting it! I ate half of dad’s chips and fried egg which is always a safe bet, and some spare veg fried rice, and some shared popcorn. And a snickers pie for dessert!
That night I had hash brown with cheese – the first really disgusting meal I’d had. Another man in the group got it and didn’t finish it either. Oily, shredded potatoes and onion, fried with cheese melted over that had solidified again. Really unpalatable. I would advise against getting it! I ate half of dad’s chips and fried egg which is always a safe bet, and some spare veg fried rice, and some shared popcorn. And a snickers pie for dessert!
What is the food like on the Everest Base Camp (and Island Peak) Trek outside of the tea houses?
These first 6 days give a pretty good representative idea of what the food is like along the EBC trek route. Most meals involve plenty of carbs, vegetables, cheese and soups. After about a week, you will likely have tried most things, and figured out what your favourites are. That’s helpful to know when you don’t necessarily feel like eating and might have to force yourself a bit further along the trek.
Once you’re on the main trek to Island Peak, the food is mainly supplied by the cooks in the dining tent along the way, rather than the tea houses. But the quality of food reality didn’t reduce much, which is a testament to the great team looking after us. The guides and cook did an awesome job of preparing food for us to eat in the dining tent at base camp, and in our own tents at High Camp.
They made things like this Dal Bhat in the dining tent…
When an Irish man is suffering some significant gastrointestinal upset on the way back down to the main trail after summiting Island Peak, but knows he has to get calories in somehow, he has to revert to a stereotypical staple… in fairness to the Tea House cooks, they came through!
Boiled Spuds with the skins on and butter, like Mammy used to make.
As good as the food on the trail is, it was pretty nice to make it back to Kathmandu and eat and drink some more familiar fare…
So… what is the food like on the Everest Base Camp (and Island Peak) Trek?
All in all, the food on the EBC and IP trek was surprisingly good. Most of it obviously has quite a “Western” spin, to accommodate the tastes of the trekkers that come through. You will never go hungry, and it’s important to keep eating even when you may not feel like it. Although the options available may seem a bit monotonous after a couple of weeks, considering the difficulty with getting much of this produce into the region, the food available is phenomenally good.
Masti garna!
Thanks so much to Brendan for sharing his food diary with us. Click here if you want to read more about our expedition to Everest Base Camp and Island Peak.
