Himalayan Restaurant & Grill Coming to Steinway Street

That’s right, Astoria is getting a Himalayan restaurant—the first since Himalaya Teahouse closed, I believe.

So, a few months back, I saw on a document distributed by CB1 the mention of a place called “Himalaya Special Restaurant & Grill” slated to open at 25-35 Steinway Street. The thing is, this location was questionable since a new 4-story building is going up at that location. The confusion and oddness was too much, so I set it aside for a while.

I perused the NY SLA site recently and saw that this same restaurant was opening at 25-94 Steinway Street—the CB1 doc had displayed the wrong address, and I could see in the DOB record for this new address that Himalayan Restaurant & Grill is going in there. Interestingly enough, when this location was home to local bar Nueva Cascada, they had their liquor license revoked and they were fined $5,000. This location seemingly has a storied past.

Additionally, this location has had a number of restaurants/bars in it, including Albar, Laybak Lounge, Al Hati, Alsarayah Restaurant, all within the past decade. Perhaps this is another cursed space? Hopefully not, and besides that we’ve seen spaces turn around (e.g., the old Anna’s Corner space on 23rd Ave turning into Bareburger and the old sad Okeanos space on Ditmars turning into Two Lizards, which was always hopping when I walked by).

I’ve reached out to the owner of the restaurant, Anil Thamsuhang from the Elmhurst/Jackson Heights area, for more info. Nowadays the area known as Himalaya Heights because there are so many immigrants from that part of the world (the Himalayas). It’s par for the course to see Tibetan and Nepalese restaurants all over the place in JH/Elmhurst, and even some in Sunnyside, but as I said, this is a relatively new cuisine for Astoria, which is very exciting. Food will be offered, obvs, and it looks like they’ll have at least beer and wine (the level of liquor license is not indicated in the SLA’s PDF). Little Tibet in Jackson Heights has a really great beer program, and I am hopeful that something on that level will be present at Himalayan Restaurant & Grill.

There’s no indication of what’s on the food menu, but my guess is that momos and noodle dishes (soup AKA Thenthuk and fried noodle dishes), meaty dishes (yes, I heart Chicken Chili), potatoes, butter tea, and if they are smart they will offer a healthy number of vegetarian dishes, too. Their Menuism site is set up and hopefully that will populate sooner than later.

We’ll keep on this and update this story as we get the info. If you know anything about this new business, feel free to pass it on!

Himalayan Restaurant & Grill, 25-94 Steinway Street, Astoria

3 Comments

Sushma August 23rd, 2016

Nice to see Himalayan restaurant in Astoria. Really nice food. They have more choices of dishes. We had appetizer drums of himalayas & chicken momo. Main course Himalayan goat curry & fish thali with naan bread which was amazing. They also have
Indian & indo- chinese food which is more similar to Nepalese food.

Reply

Mag August 22nd, 2016

Walked past here recently and the menu presents largely “Indian Chinese style” food. Which, I guess, if one took the median, would be Himalayan ? Lots of rice, tikka masala, etc. There are also a few dishes that are what one would consider Himalayan, though, including a goat dish.

Reply

Meg Cotner August 22nd, 2016

Hmm… sounds like a different family of dishes than actual Nepalese or Tibetan food. I like Indian style Chinese food quite a bit but I don’t think of it as Himalayan (Kolkata, where Indian-style Chinese started, is too far south in my view). If I’m wrong I’d love to be corrected. And I have had chicken lollipops at Tibetan places, too. Anyway, glad to hear about the goat dish. I hope more dishes from Nepal and Tibet will be on the menu.

Reply