WINNIPEG: Ginger Garlic Nepalese Cuisine is the most popular sport for diners. Ginger Garlic is located at 230 Winnipeg St., an industrial strip that doesn’t get much foot traffic. Binod Gurung chose it because of its ease of access via Ring Road. He believes people will be willing to make the trip.
Gurung said the food at Ginger Garlic can be found anywhere you go in Nepal. He calls it “Nepalese street food.” “We wanted to serve the people of Regina our authentic food. Every Nepalese can make this kind of food.”
Binod Gurung says Nepalese chow mein is different from other chow means because it has a bit of mustard flavor, cumin powder and cumin seeds in it.
What makes Nepalese food stand out for me is the flavor and texture combinations.
The chili chicken has razor-thin breading on it, deep-fried, and with what looks like a familiar sweet and sour reddish sauce but it’s spicy from fresh green chili peppers. There are also hints of cumin and turmeric, with sliced onion, bell pepper, fresh tomato, and ketchup. At a glance, it looks like Chinese food, but its flavor profile is quite different. And the chicken, marinated before it’s breaded and fried, is so juicy.
Gurung takes hospitality seriously. After studying hotel and restaurant management in his hometown of Pokhara, Nepal, he worked in local restaurants for a few years before moving to Dubai, where he spent 10 years.
While in Dubai, he worked with two chefs, Resham Gurung (no relation) and Raj Dhungana, both of whom also hail from Pokhara.
The owners of Ginger Garlic (from left to right), Resham Gurung, Binod Gurung, and Raj Dhungana, all hail from the same city in Nepal.
“He can cook Nepalese food, Indian food, Chinese food … Western food, too,” said Binod of Resham. “He can cook all of the food.”
In 2011, Resham moved to Calgary and was joined shortly thereafter by Binod and Dhungana. They continued to work in restaurants together. Then the brother of one of their co-workers opened an Indian restaurant called Caraway Grill in Regina, and in 2014, he invited them to work there. They figured it was worth a shot. They worked at Caraway Grill together for five years. Binod started as a waiter and was later promoted to assistant manager.
Eventually, they felt ready to open their own restaurant. Ginger Garlic opened in May 2019.
Why the name Ginger Garlic? Binod wanted a name that was easy to remember and something even children could pronounce.
He also came up with the nifty slogan, “Good food, good mood.”
Don’t leave the restaurant without trying the yellow coconut chicken curry. It was the star of the show for me: rich, creamy, spicy and a touch sweet. Eating it, I felt for a moment like I was sitting in the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, or maybe it was a Himalayan mountainside lodge. No matter, it was a good place.
Binod considers word of mouth marketing is “real marketing.”
“It means trust. Better than advertising. The person who is trustworthy, whatever he said, they will trust him. To trust one another is word of mouth. I can say that in business.”
Indeed, I’d heard about Ginger Garlic through word of mouth.
There is a lot to try at Ginger Garlic. I suggest you go with a big group to taste test as much as possible.
(with inputs from Agencies)
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