Momos Down Under

We’ve been eating our favorite snack food while traveling in Australia and New Zealand the past several weeks.

It’s not chips, burgers or pizza, although these are plentiful. No, we’ve been eating momos — the Nepalese dumplings you see in the photo here.

In Sydney, we ate at The Momo Hub, then at Falcha Hall. As soon as we arrived in New Zealand, we ate at Kathmandu Mo:Mo in Christchurch, then at Mela in Dunedin and The Himalaya in Queenstown.

If you’ve never tried momos, you don’t know what you’re missing. They’re delectable dumplings stuffed with flavorful ground meat or vegetables You buy them either steamed or fried, dip them in sauce and eat them with a fork or your fingers — one or two bites per momo. Our go-to order is a plate of 10 or 12 steamed chicken momos, which we share.

Momos are ubiquitous in Nepal and have been gaining popularity elsewhere. You can find them in most U.S. cities. In India, some fast food chains now specialize in momos. I think it’s only a matter of time until momos become as common to the American food scene as tacos or ramen, which were considered exotic not so long ago.

Here in Australia and New Zealand, which both have significant numbers of Nepalis, momo shops have also been a great place for us to meet people and learn about their lives. The above photo shows Champa with a Gurung family we met in Queenstown. The owner, Satya Thapa, is on the right. That’s him cooking in the next photo.

The following photo shows a young woman who moved recently to Dunedin, on New Zealand’s South Island, to help her brother launch a Nepalese restaurant featuring momos. They were yummy. Like everyone else we met, she was surprised when I placed the order and chatted in Nepali, which I learned years ago while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal.

We’ve also been eating local foods, of course, as well as this region’s famous beer and wine. However, we did skip the kangaroo meat.

I know it’s odd to write about Nepal’s national snack food while we’re touring Down Under but there’s never a bad time to eat or talk about momos. I’m dreaming of the day when someone opens a momo shop in our hometown of Durham, N.C.