A very local eatery

After my first work meeting earlier this week, my British colleague to me and a couple of others from the office to this rather local establishment. Not one I would usually trust without some serious recommendations. But who can resist a plate full of lovely steamed momos? 

I've tried making Momos in the UK in the past. N loves them and there is something particularly fun about making them together. One rolls the dough, the other fills them with the meat and onion filing. I've always found that the one at home, though nice and tasty, then to end up with the meat being on the slightly dry side. Clearly lean mince is not quite the right thing, and what you need is some seriously fatty filing! And some good chili sauce. I didn't get a picture of it, but a mug of chili sauce was being passed between the tables, bright red an clearly nothing but ground up chilly. I decided not to risk it. If the momo's where going to upset me, the spice certainly was! 

Very simple but delicious place of lovely momos

So this restaurant was seriously simple. Just two tables that got shared around between customers. And the owner is a Nepali woman married to a Tibetan man who runs the cafe with her son. Like anywhere else, if the place is filled with locals happily eating, then it must be good. When we arrived we got one of the tables to ourselves. The other was being shared, an old Tibetan woman, a chupa roughly put on, layers upon layers even in this heat and old grey hair platted and wound round her head, a mala round her neck and a few pieces of old Tibetan jewelry; a young mother and her daughter, out for her school lunch break, the girl said she was five but really that means she was four, Tibetans say they are 1 from the time they are born, eat up, eat up - a plate of momos and bowl of weak momo soup; and a Nepali man who spoke perfect Tibetan who was introduced to me as one of the drivers for a local hospital, a bit smile and friendly face. The same hospital where oddly my offices have the top floor. 

 A restaurant like this is a real experience. A lot to see and take in. I dare not think what meat it is hanging on the line across the kitchen. Not what was in my momos I hope. Though saying that, they were delicious and I have not had any tummy repercussions so it must have been clean enough. There were bowls of boiled noodles ready to make soup, or turn into chowmein, plates of herbs and vegetables and a big momo steamer on the stove.