We are in one of our favorite neighborhoods in New York City. We are in Jackson Heights
This is a neighborhood I've spent the second half of my life in. I've basically
grown up here my teenage and later years. This neighborhood was known as
Little India for a long time. There's a lot of Indian restaurants and there's still a
lot of Indian shops grocery stores. There's sari stores and jewelry stores.
But, there's a Himalayan community here. In the last 10 years or so, the Himalayan community - Tibetan
Nepali, even some Bhutanese have set up shop here and there's tons of different
restaurants here - there's over 20 places to get this style of cuisine. So today
we're gonna take you on a Himalayan dumpling tour. They're called momos. These are
the most popular food group in this neighborhood by far. This neighborhood is
even called by our buddy Joe DiStefano as Himalayan heights for good reason. And
he also does food tours here. Yes he does. He's a longtime food blogger in
this neighborhood (OG) yes. So they even have what's called a Momo Crawl here. So
there's over 20 places in a few blocks span that sell momos and other Tibetan
and Nepali food. And the beautiful thing is that each place does their momos
differently. There's so many different fillings - there's beef, there's chicken,
there's buffalo, there's all types. We're gonna take you to a nice mix today.
Six different spots if we don't explode by the end which we might anyway.
So our first stop is at the back of this cell phone shop.
We gotta get our phones fixed you know, gotta get a new cell phone. Nah, not really.
It's actually one of the biggest - it was a secret for a long time, but not so much anymore.
We are going in at the back of a cellphone shop store which is Lhasa Fast Food.
Can we get one order beef and chive momo, please. Thank you
So we are here at Lhasa Fast Food. It's our first stop of the day this is a
Tibetan spot. So Lhasa is named for a city in Tibet. So we're actually getting
one type of momo here that's a mix of beef and chive.
So I'm gonna go ahead and take a bite.
Can really taste those garlicky chives right away. There's some minced pieces of beef
in here too, but those garlicky chives really overwhelm - so good. Very delicate skin on this momo.
One thing to be careful when you're eating the chive. It gets stuck in your
teeth. They have toothpick somewhere. Here we love their hot sauce it's perfect to go
with these momos. Let's take a bite with the hot sauce.
(Jumi) Is it still the same hot sauce?
it's even hotter than I remember it being. Success in our first stop. It's just
kind of like an appetizer, we still have room more room for more momos. Let's see how
we feel after four more stops right. Yeah it's very cool Anthony Bourdain came here for his last
Queens episode before he sadly passed away. Cool thing is this space they make
the most out of that limited space. They don't even have a full-scale kitchen here.
But the new spot does with a larger menu so we're very happy for them.
Dangers about what we're doing today is these spots that we are going are really
close to each other. It's gotta be the highest concentration of momos.
I don't know about the world, but very well could be. It's only within a few blocks span there's
so many spots, trucks and here's another one right here that's gonna be our second stop.
One order of beef momo please to stay with the radish, please.
So we are outside our favourite beef momos in New York City
Yup the Amdo Truck. They won the best momos people's choice voted on 2015 for the
Momo Crawl. These are my really really favorite whenever I'm starving and I
need something for like appetizer before dinner I always come here. Or
Greg will pick me up some.
Let's grab one of these right here. These very juicy look at that it's already dripping juice. It's
almost like a xiaolongbao a little bit it's knotted at the top it's not as soupy
as a xiaolongbao. So let's take a bite.
That juicy beef filling. So good. The skin - not too thin
not too thick. But what we really have to do is add some sepen - the hot sauce. Look how
thick and chunky the hot sauce is.
This momo is already delicious, but the sepen takes it to near perfection. Wow.
They also have this spicy fermented radish. There's even Sichuan peppercorn
here. It numbs your mouth. So it's kind of like a kimchi, but with radish. There goes
that floral Sichuan peppercorn. It's so good with this and with that hot sauce
This is a great meal it really is.
We're here at Potala and our favorite momos here are these veggie momos. And the
veggie filling is just straight-up chives. Some places they do potato and
other veggies, this is just straight-up chives and we love that. Let's take a bite.
It's steaming, freshly made. The chive filling is so fresh it's garlicky. And what's nice
about it - it's not salty. And just relies on the flavor of the chives so what
we're gonna do is take some sauce with it
Now we get the sauce and the momo's already falling apart is that thinner skin. This
one has a nice thin skin. Gotta do a one biter here.The sauce is a little mellower - it's
more of a sesame flavor. It complements these momos really well. Sauce doesn't
overwhelm, so you can still really taste those chives. These are excellent
So if you're vegetarian, this is the spot for you, this is the momo for you. These are
excellent. Even though we're not vegetarians, these are some of our
favorite momos in the neighborhood. So we just finished our third stop. Now it's the
half time right now. We're halfway there. So we went to three Tibetan places, now we're
going to our first for Nepali. And you're gonna see the differences in
these momos coming up they're very delicious, some of our favorites as well.
We've said that at every spot, this is how much we love these places. Let's go, let's
feast. And then this fourth stop is like 10 steps away.
This place has also basement
I am filming at the basement right now.
That's our secret
One chicken jhol momo, please.
We're in Nepali Bhanchha Ghar. We have the jhol momo. This is a momo in a
soup - look at this orange soup right here.
A really hearty broth warm. Gonna take a sip of the broth first from the bowl.
So flavorful. Taste sesame, spicy, little tangy, so good. A lot of cilantro in here,
chopped chilies. Mmm so fragrant delicious and so perfect for a cold
snowy day like this. Now let's have that momo with the broth.
The momo filling, these are chicken. The momo filling is also very very flavorful.
There's ginger in there, there's garlic. It's so good and the skin is very
thin on the outside. So it just kind of collapsed, so it's nice to cut it open
get the broth seeping into the momo oh it's perfect.
These are some of our favorites. There's a reason why they won the Momo Crawl
twice. Back to back defending champs. Well we didn't order this, but another
specialty here is the sel roti. But this just came out freshly fried it's so
hot. Burning my fingers right now, but so worth it. Steam coming out
Freshly fried. Made with rice flour. Slightly sweet
Pretty much done you don't to waste any of the broth so the best way to do it,
just take it down. The broth is incredible.
So this is like the longest walk we did in this crawl. We made it to Woodside
right now which is the neighborhood directly next to Jackson Heights. 69th Street.
We're walking to our.. well.. uh fifth stop. Yeah we're losing track already, that's
good, bad, I don't know. But it's our fifth stop of the day.
We've eaten a lot of momos already. We sure have, but still going strong still got
room. Filling up but we have enough room for our last two stops, or so we think.
We'll see. Hopefully. I think we will.
We're outside it's so bright. We're outside our fifth spot of the day it's called
Momo Crave it's a Nepali spot. It's actually the newest place of the day
that we're going to. They opened up just last year and they have a lot of
interesting fusion kind of momos here, it's really tasty.
It's a great spot. Let's go, let's keep it moving, let's feast.
we're here at Momo Crave. It's always a tough decision here what to get. They have so
many interesting combos here. They have sukuti momo, which is topped with
beef jerky. They have chaat momo, which is served in a
yogurt sauce like a samosa chaat. But the one that intrigues us the most is
what we order is the tandoori momo. It's the most unique preparation we've
ever seen on a momo. It's served on skewers.
And the outside of the momo skin is covered in tandoori spices. It's
such a striking red color- really really unique. Let's take a bite
You can really taste the flavor of that tandoori spice. That ginger, paprika a
little bit of cumin in there. It's so good. It's such a groundbreaking idea to brush
the outside of the momo with the spice. It adds a whole nother layer of
flavor instead of just a plain momo skin. Wow
Great momo crawl today. We've taken you on a tour of some of the best momo. Some of the
best Himalayan dumplings. We are now at our final stop. Stop number six is at
Himalayan Yak. It's actually the first Himalayan restaurant in this
neighborhood. It's the OG of the neighborhood and they have something
very interesting.
Got that tangy, that little spice, that ginger. You really taste the tequila too, this
is awesome.
Himalayan Yak, the only place that we know even in New York City where you can get
yak meat. We got yak chili momos. So these momos are fried on the outside, stuffed
with the yak meat and then they are covered in a chili sauce. There's a lot of crushed
chili flakes in there, it's slightly sweet not too spicy. The meat itself is
very juicy. You can taste the distinct flavor of the yak. Ideally, take a bite first
without the skin, you take the meat out. Really wanna taste the yak meat and that's what we did.
Oh it's good, it's got onions in there. That yak meat has a nice sweet flavor to it it's
very lean, it's really tasty. But still so juicy inside of that momo - a unique one.
Another uniques spot here to end off this tour.
That was a serious crawl that we did today. We hope you enjoyed it. We took you
to six awesome spots. Six different types of momo. Momo overload, but we love them so
much we'll eat them again pretty soon. We hope you enjoyed this video
Thank you for watching. Please give us a like, subscribe, hit the bell button. You want to be the
first to comment, of course! We're gonna keep exploring. Subscribe. Peace out
See you soon
Alright so.
you're gonna your eyes it's so bright I can't