Gettin' our GroupOn at Kathmandu Spice

If you're not gettin' your GroupOn, you are missing out on 50-90 percent off restaurants (and other businesses). Zach has been a devoted GroupOn groupie lately, and his most recent score was 50 percent off at Kathmandu Spice in Arlington. Z spent $20, and we got $40 worth of food and drinks. Hooray! The only catch: A certain number of people need to buy the GroupOn in order for you to get the deal; otherwise, you end up being out $20.

I am a huge fan of Indian food, and since Z studied abroad in India in college, sharing the country's cuisine is one of our favorite things to do. The bonus at Kathmandu: Their menu boasts both Nepalese and Indian cuisine. Kathmandu was next to empty on the Monday night we dined there, which is understandable since - well, it was a Monday. However, our waiter was friendly, eloquent, and informative, and the menu included one of my favorite items that any oddly-named restaurant menu can include: A history on where the name of the restaurant comes from.

To start, we both ordered a light, crisp, ice cold Kingfisher Lager (notice Z's attempt to get in the spotlight here).

For an appetizer, we split the Vegetable Momos ($6.25), which are Himalayan dumplings stuffed with mixed vegetables and served with a spicy tomato sauce.

The momos were perfectly soft and slightly chewy on the outside, with the well-spiced vegetable filling providing most of the flavor.

As an entree, I failed at jotting down the name of my dish - you'd think after six years of food writing, I wouldn't forget to do this anymore - but, I did. The dish isn't listed on the website's menu, either, but it was basically a Nepalese curry dish chocked full of perfectly cooked veggies (the price was around $12).

This dish was bursting with curry and fresh herb flavors, and the sauce was thick enough to coat the vegetables in a nice, warm blanket of deliciousness. The sauce also had a fantastic kick to it (I ordered it extra spicy). I sopped up any leftover sauce with some fresh, warm naan.

Neither Zach nor I have big sweet tooths, so we skipped dessert - but Kathmandu has a pretty decent dessert selection, including mango ice cream and Sagarmatha Rolls, which are bananas wrapped in a crispy roll served with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. Another perk: Kathmandu serves a number of goat dishes, which most American-based Indian restaurants don't serve, even though goat is prominent in India.

With or without scoring the deal from GroupOn, Kathmandu was reasonably priced, and we enjoyed a relaxing, satisfying, and flavorful meal.

Random query: Would you eat goat? Why or why not?

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