Everybody eats dumplings.
The Chinese stuff them with pork and ginger and fry them, steam them or float them in soup. What are ravioli and tortellini? Dumplings. Russians and Poles are crazy for their pierogi and their pelmeni, Pennsylvania Dutch eat a lot of apple dumplings, Jamaicans make their goat dumplings spicy, and Venezuelans use mashed potatoes for their dumpling jackets.
In some places, dumplings are minor actors. In Tibet, they are called momos, and they are stars.
Rightfully so.
Good momos are delicate and pliant on the outside, and packed with all sorts of things: vegetables, for sure; meat, often; spices and herbs, you bet. The round purses, made with flour and water, are about the circumference of silver dollars, and they should be fat. They will come in a bowl and they will sit atop a puddle of sauce, or the sauce will come on the side. A serving can fill you up, and it shouldn’t cost more than $7.
The Front Range supports several Tibetan restaurants. At least one of them, Tibet Kitchen in Boulder, serves excellent momos. They make all of their momos from scratch — no frozen 100-packs of momos shipped in from a warehouse in New Jersey — which probably explains, in part, why these dumplings are such marvels.
Many dumplings we eat in restaurants, I fear, do spend a lot of time in warehouse and tractor-trailer freezers before we bite into them.
With its rich, warm colors, its Tibetan prayer flags, its Tibetan music, and its small library of books about Tibet, Tibet Kitchen is awfully charming, too.
It’s a little package of good, just like its momos.
Douglas Brown: 303-954-1395 or djbrown@denverpost.com
Tibet Kitchen
Tibetan. 2359 Arapahoe Road, Boulder, 303-440-0882. Lunch and dinner daily.
