O!MOMO

My husband is a massive dumpling fan and is obsessed with all varieties of pork and seafood dumplings. Me on the other hand… when I hear the word «dumplings» I think «sigh… boring!»
You see, I don’t eat pork. I don’t eat seafood. I only eat chicken and vegetarian stuff– oh but did I mention I don’t eat mushrooms either? Typical dumpling restaurants serve bland vegetarian options that require a bucketload of sauce to even taste remotely interesting and half the time when I order chicken they are «out of them» and that’s if I can even find chicken on the menu! My point here? Dumplings and me usually don’t have a great relationship.
So I was quite curious to see what a Nepalese dumpling tastes like. I got to try these little beauties for the first time at the Unilocal ‘80s party and this may be a big claim but the chicken dumpling is probably the best I’ve ever tried. Unlike the typical Asian dumplings I am accustomed to– these were not average. The tomato relish and coriander was tasty accompaniment and a welcome surprise for my picky taste buds.
Can’t say I was a fan of the puffed rice salad and the vegetarian dumplings were more similar to the standard dumplings I’m used to– but that chicken one? I’d hunt this place down just for that alone.

About a year ago I was doing some Unilocal-​y stuff up at the Northern Beaches Music Festival at Narrabeen, and as the lazy Sunday was winding down I wandered out and stumbled upon O! Momo Nepalese dumplings. Say whaa? As a committed dumpling fiend of some repute I thought I knew every dumper ever made. But chicken momo? Gimme. Chicken was succulent, and slathered in a tomato relish that tasted of mild, fragrant curry the damn things were a taste sensation. I got 6. Then another 6.
Since then I’ve been seeing O! Momo pop up all over the place, from Newtown Festival to Field Day in the Domain to it’s latest incarnation in the courtyard of World Bar in King’s Cross dishing out puffed rice salads and char-​grilled skewers to hungry punters. And I met Bunny, the owner, a native Nepali fluent in more languages than I’ll ever speak in my lifetime. Dudes like Bunny are part of the reason I love small businesses. .. he’s super chilled out and intensely pro-​human, as happy as he is dishing up deliciousness as he is hanging out with customers chatting about philosophy, festivals and traveling.
Now all I have to do is get over to Nepal. It’s on the bucket list. It’s been there for ages. One of these days… !