They opened a restaurant in a new location a week ago after seeing a vacant space along the East-West Highway.
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Thakur Sapkota, who has been cultivating bananas, has started a restaurant to sell banana dishes. Bananas are usually eaten in their ripe pods. There is also a tradition of making pickles from raw bananas and eating them at home.
Delicious banana momos, piro piro banana chili, and banana choila with spices can be seen and tasted at stalls at trade fairs and festivals held in different parts of the country.
Restaurants selling such dishes have also started opening. Banana dishes are cooked at the 'Chitwan Banana World' in Bakulhar Chowk, Ratnanagar.
Thakur Sapkota, who has been cultivating bananas, runs this restaurant. Sapkota, 44, of Jirauna Baghdevi, Ratnanagar Municipality-12, has been cultivating bananas for 14 years. He said that he is preparing the dish to sell with the idea of getting a good price for bananas.
'Bananas are ready to be sold in the garden, but sometimes they get a good price, sometimes they have to bear a loss. I came here thinking why should I sell only raw or ripe pods,' said Thakur. He said that he thought of opening a restaurant after hearing that Kalu Hamal and others were making and selling various banana dishes in Kailali. His restaurant, ‘Chitwan Kera Sansar’, sells raw and ripe bananas along with the dishes.
He said that he sells bananas at a slightly cheaper price than other places. ‘There was a problem selling the produce grown in the fields only from the fields. If it makes dishes, why not make them, I came here,’ said Sapkota. He opened a restaurant a few blocks from Chake three months ago. After seeing a vacant space along the East-West Highway, he started a restaurant at a new location a week ago.
‘People who had come to the old place once came back again and again because the food was delicious. It started doing well. I came here even though the rent was expensive because I thought I could do better if it was on the side of the road,’ said Thakur. He said that he makes seven or eight dishes, including momos, choila, pakodas, chili, chips, lassi. He is preparing to make banana brandy and sell it by the end of Falgun.
‘Banana cultivation used to be up to 27 bighas. It has now shrunk to 12 bighas. I started making dishes and selling them after seeing that selling only the pods would not bring good profit,’ says Sapkota. He says that he has a solution when problems arise. He said that he also plans to make banana wine. ‘Since wine requires investment and time, I am thinking about it. I am starting to make brandy,’ said Thakur.
Restaurants selling only banana dishes had opened in Chitwan earlier too. But they could not run well. He said that now he has prepared dishes that customers like after thinking and studying a lot. ‘Banana dishes are tasty and healthy too. I have tried hard to maintain the taste. That is why customers like them,’ said Thakur.
He believes that the restaurant will run well because the customers like it. Bishnu Hari Pant, former president of the Chitwan Banana Growers Association and current president of the central committee, says that the practice of selling dishes will be a good support for banana farming. ‘Various delicious dishes are made from banana fruit. Sweet pickles are made from the flowers. When dishes that customers like are sold, the demand for bananas increases,’ said Pant.
