Native Dish: Nepalese Yak Momos - NYC Immigrant Cuisine: Himalayan Yak Restaurant

In 2004, Jamyang (Jimmy) Gurung left the cold deserts of Mustang, Nepal to help his uncle open a restaurant in the then-nascent Himalayan community of Jackson Heights, Queens. Several years later, Jimmy and other Himalayan colleagues keep tradition alive while reinterpreting the juicy taste of the authentic "Momo" Yak dumpling through American-grown ingredients. They're educating New Yorkers about the unique health benefits and taste of lean Yak meat.

(in Albanian) Welcome! Come inside!

(in Egyptian Arabic) Sit and join us!

(in Spanish) Try some Pollo Saltado!

(in Moroccan Arabic)
Would you like some soup?

(in Italian)
Would you like a biscuit?

[NATIVE DISH]
(United Flavors of NYC)

♪ music ♪

(Raksha) In Nepal, we don't get
to work in restaurants.

My mother was like,
"Oh, you're working in a restaurant?"

She thinks that in the United States,
there's no food from Nepal.

♪ music ♪

I'm from Nepal -- Mustang,
which is borderside of Tibet and Nepal.

Mustang like a car, yeah...

very high altitude place,
cold desert area.

Hills, mountains,
it's a landlocked country.

It's very hard to grow rice in our places.

♪ music ♪

In South Asian countries
the situation is very low economics.

I came here 12 years ago
for better opportunity.

There was like very few Nepalese people
in Jackson Heights area

and there was only one Nepalese restaurant
-- this restaurant.

Nepalese food -- it's a little bit more
into Indian traditional,

more spicy, more juicy, rich, salty.

Usually in Nepal,

the people, they prepare food at home.

Most of the spices are homemade spices,

so they grind it, they dry it in the sun.

People living in the Himalayas,
in the cold areas,

they love to have the yak meat,
which is very sweet and delicious.

(Jimmy) Yak is like a wild animal,

long hair, long horns, long tails,

looks like a bison.

In Nepal, they use it
as a pet animal also.

They always survive in very cold
and high altitude places.

[YAKS ARE INDIGENOUS TO HIMALAYAN REGIONS,
MONGOLIA, RUSSIA AND ALASKA]

The meat tastes a little bit
different than beef -- more tender.

It's not greasy like beef and
not too dry like buffalo.

We can make a lot of varieties...

Momo is a homemade dumpling
--it's a very common food in Nepal.

For Yak Meat Momo, we use whole wheat,

ground yak meat

mixed with onions, cilantro,
garlic, ginger...

Jimbu (Himalayan onions),

some oil,

mix it up...

(Raksha) The dough, they have to make it
into very tiny pieces,

they roll it,

and then they make it into
a different shape.

(Jimmy) Steaming is our real way
to cook Yak Momo

because the fat,
when it boils, tastes better.

In Nepal, most of the ingredients,
we grow in our own gardens.

Over here, the Momo tastes
a little bit different

because even those kind of cilantro
you grow in high altitudes

than you grow here has a different taste.

Onions... different kinds of herbs also.

Our restaurant is actually based on
the community business.

This is a place where all the Nepalese,

Tibetan communities come over here

for gathering, holidays, weekend...

When I come in here
I feel like this is my home

because the taste,

the smell of the food,

the people here...
I feel like this is Nepal.

Here in Jackson Heights, I feel like
this is like Kathmandu Valley.

Leaving my country and coming here
in the United States,

now I get to taste
a lot of the traditional food here.