EPIC Traditional TIBETAN Food Tour in AMERICA

I think momos are my favorite dumplings. Or my favorite like bao, like baozi like thing. What's the most momos you can eat, man? These things are, these are packing the meat. Me when I'm hungry, like a lot. What is it like to dive deep into regional Tibetan cuisine, hit up a marketplace, an underground shop, and the most popular food truck? Well, let's find out. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to another Queens episode of The World NY. Today we're in Jackson Heights and we're gonna be trying authentic Tibetan food. Now, Andrew, we have done one Tibetan food video before, but there are so many different regional cuisines, deep cuts, dishes we haven't tried. And you know that we could not do this video without an authentic Tibetan friend. So we got the plug with us, Tashi. Hi, everyone. I'm super excited to take you guys on this journey with me today. Queens has a really large population of Tibetan people. It's a really dense community. So we're gonna hit up Kampa Kitchen today, maybe some grocery stores later and some markets and it's gonna be really fun. Jackson Heights specifically is so diverse. We got Kampa Kitchen right here, one of the hottest Tibetan spots in the all of New York City, maybe the entire country. Tashi, you're gonna walk us through some dishes we've never had. I'm so excited. Let's go. All right, you guys, we are here at Kampa Kitchen, Jackson Heights. We're sitting in front of a crazy feast. All this food is regional to the Kham region. Yes, most of them. I know that there's what? There's three major regions of Tibet, right? There's Kham, Utsang, and Amdo. We're at Kampa Kitchen. So some of the dishes highlight, you know, the Kampa region. And you are a Kampa person? Yes, I am. Some of these Kampa dishes, I've never even seen before in my entire life, so I'm really excited. What should we lead off with? So we call this Buja. It's butter tea. So black tea, a little bit of milk, and traditionally it'll have yak butter in it. It's very difficult to get yak products in America, right? Oh, absolutely, yeah. Ooh, that's good. And buttery. And I heard, because the climate is so cold in Tibet, that it's really good to have this butter, you know, keeps your body moving, metabolizing, you know, and fat burning. I heard there's a lot of different versions of this, right? I think if people have not had butter in their tea... Yo, you gotta try this. I had this a few times. This is the best version I've ever had. This is also one of, like, our Salvatore dishes. It's called Kapse. It's basically fried dough. You can dip this in your butter tea. I usually like to let it soak for a little bit. And it's so cool, because depending on which household you go to, everyone makes their Kapse a little different. Put the Kapse in the Buja. I know you guys aren't afraid of the fat, because we're dipping the dough in some butter tea. It's good. The butter tea is like, it's a little bit salty, but it's very milky. And it still has that tea flavor. This is the Kampot Potip. This is one of our, like, main dishes in Kampot that we're really known for. Right, because it's regional. It's like, they might not have it in Lhasa, right? Exactly. So it's a Salvatore dish. In English, it looks like a meat pie. Inside is beef. Once again, if we're in Tibet, it would be yak meat. They keep it really natural with the spices and the seasoning, so it's not too overwhelming. You could say you're sort of an authority to speak on this, because you are from Tibet, right? You are from the Kamp region, right? Kampot Potip. Sort of like a clam chowder bowl. These are the Tibetan hot sauces, right? Very famous. Look at that color. This is super deep red. You know, this is packing the spice. This is, like, such fun food, you know? What do you guys call the hot sauce? Tsepeh. And hit me with some tsepeh. This is the first bite of the potip. Yo, that hot sauce is unlike anything I ever had. You can really taste the herbs. The coriander is really coming through, and that beef is super tender. They also put a little bit of Sichuan in here. Because the Kamp region is pretty close to Sichuan province, right? Wow, I got this. This chili oil looks different too. I'm excited. Which chili oil do you prefer, bro? I might prefer the tsepeh, because it has more garlic. So this is guma. This is blood sausage. Really popular in Tibet in general. This is steamed, and this is sauteed, fried. This is the more traditional. This is the more newer kind. I've had a couple other blood sausages in my life, but actually I would say these look super plump and even juicier than the other ones. We put a little bit of tsamba in there as well, which is roasted barley, a little bit of meat, coriander, and Sichuan. Tsamba is what we call it, but roasted barley is kind of like our national food. Keeps you full throughout the day. So it's kind of like the nomad's food. Guma blood sausage. It doesn't have like that overpowering like bloody taste, but this one's really good. Really easy to eat. Very savory. Fried guma. So I know the steamed one's traditional, but I know why they came up with this one. I think conventionally, maybe more people in 2020 would go with the fried one. Okay, next up we have what? So we've got the momo, and we've got the jingmo. The jingmo is used to kind of as a side dish for main courses, like, you know, the pepper, sauteed peppers. This one, a lot of people see resemblance to baozi. Basically like a combo momo, the wrap is a little thick, and it's a little bit more juicier. This is probably of Tibetan food, globally, the number one, like, most exported dish. Dude, I love the filling in momos because it's more beef, right? Hit me with some of that sauce. This is the hot sauce right here. Honestly, I think momos are my favorite dumplings, or my favorite like bao, like baozi-like thing. It's sort of like the way, Andrew, the jiazou from Vietnam is my favorite egg roll. The momo is my favorite version. I just want to go somewhere at a high altitude right now. Can we go hiking? Okay, moving on now to our stir-fried chili section. Tashi, what do we got here? So here we've got the chile, which is beef tongue, sauteed. And then over here, we've got the Anaheim peppers with beef, sauteed as well. And then we've got the chicken chili, a little South Asia inspiration. Growing up in Cannes, you actually didn't eat this chili chicken. Not as much. That was like more once you got to Jackson Heights. Exactly. Because this dish in Jackson Heights is like, is popping. So this is where I recommend to dip the jingmo. Yeah, so use the jingmo as your spoon. I love that salty, buttery flavor that's imparted in everything. So you're saying it has more flavor than a mantou? I would take that for sure. All right. Chile. Chile sounds like the coolest way you can tell somebody to chill when they're being too savage. Instead of chile, chile. See these slices of garlic in here? I love that with the peppers. The first stir-fried beef tongue dish I've ever had. Next up, let's go with the beef and the peppers. Yes. You can really taste the Chinese influence in there. Compa food, you know, taking on some Sichuan influences is not a bad idea because Sichuan is like the most popular cuisine right now of the Chinese. So I'm like, no, if you're going to take the best parts of them and some influences, that's going to be great. So far, I'm with the chile. The last time I actually had this was in Jackson Heights at a Chinese Bangladeshi spot. This actually reminds me of the shout out section that I got to do because every time I'm in Queens, I got to shout people out. Shout out to people at Jalal NYC. And obviously, the people who helped set this up was Tenzin and T-Cho from Boston. So two of our other Tibetan friends. My family lived in Manhattan, Harlem. And there's not, as you know, there's not as many Tibetan people out there. Therefore, there's not as many Tibetan restaurants. So a lot of the Tibetan food and cuisine that I would get was from home. And then when I moved to Queens, and then there was this whole world. This restaurant itself, the Compa Kitchen, it's for our community. It's to help feed our community, to bring them a little closer to home. But also to teach the Queens community about Tibetan food, about Compa food, you know? I think restaurants are beautiful because in a way, not only do you have a story and culture in the dishes, but you can even have some of the same things that a museum will have on the wall. I'm going in for more chile. This is a five out of five. I don't even like cow tongue. Like seriously, I'm not like generally, because it's so easy to like mess it up. All right, our last and final round here at Compa Kitchen. What are we looking at, Tashi? So we've got the Tibetan noodles here. The flavoring in the broth is super rich. They cook the beef bones for at least three days. Here we've got the leffing. It's mung bean starch. So the noodle in itself doesn't have a lot of flavors, but it's in the sauce. And here we've got shogo sip sip. This is basically sauteed shoestring potato. Shogo sip sip. That's a really cool name. That's one of the coolest names for a dish. No, the Tibetan language is really cool. Shogo sip sip. This dish is really good with the chopped chilies in it too. Leffing. Smooth. Spicy. That's a bone broth. I can feel it. Last but not least, guys. So this we call detup. It's got butter in there. So it's a little bit more on the creamier side. Imagine if we were in Tibet with the yak butter. That would be crazy in yak butter congee. Everything lowkey got the salty buttery flavor. I've never had like buttery rice or congee. That kind of works. All the countries and different regions around that area we call the Himalayan region. So we've got Tibet, we've got Nepal, we've got Bhutan, we've got India. There's a lot of countries surrounding it. So we're all influenced by one another and it shows in the food. My favorite has got to be the kampuputi. I haven't had beef in a bread roll that was so fragrant and herbaceous. My favorite is the guma, steamed or fried. It's just such a staple in the Tibetan cuisine. No, that was my favorite blood sausage I've ever had. My favorites, the lefeng and the chile. And last but not least, I might have to say salted butter tea. Yes. This is crazy. Cheers. Where to next, Tashi? Next, we're going to hit up some Tibetan markets. Yo, Aaron, have you ever been to a Tibetan market? No, man. Which means we'll see you in a bit. I know how Tibetans drink all that butter but still keep them moving. I feel great. Let's go. So now we're going to Tibetan market. It's actually conveniently right next to Kumpa Kitchen. Tashi, are all the Himalayan spots in Jackson Heights all walking distance from each other? Yes, absolutely. It just makes things easier. Jackson Heights is closer to Manhattan than you think. It's not even far. I'm not going to lie to the Flushing friends. Flushing's a little deeper but Jackson Heights, it's actually pretty close. We're not that far from Corona, right? Since we just opened up yesterday, we don't have an official signage yet. So it's a little bit speakeasy-ish. So we are getting the sneak preview of the Tibetan market. Let's go check it out. So we're in front of the market. This is Tibetan Cafe. We've got some snacks here. Is that a chapale? It is a chapale. Oh my goodness. This is chapale. Oh, I'd like one. Yes, absolutely. What's that? So that is, this is amdopale. So it's a regular bread. But the difference is it's a little bit more thicker, a little chewier and also a little sweeter. And then that is the sampa, right? That is the sampa cake. I've watched three to four YouTube videos in the past 24 hours on it. So to see the sampa in person after watching the videos is like... Ah, I'm excited. We sell natural gemstones such as amber, coral, turquoise. Since I was 17 years old. I collect the most antique jewelry. It's very hard to find. You guys wear for like spiritual, religious reasons? Yeah. We chant like such as... It's like a part of a meditation. He's got prayed on, man. This is a teapot or a hotpot? For hotpot. Oh, shoot. Yeah, this is antique, you know? We were from Tibet. Made in China, the Mongolians. Mongol like warrior teapot. Yo, I thought it was a genie lamp or something. It is. In Mongolia, Tibet or any Himalayan regions, butter tea, right? You use a wood cup. When you drink Coca-Cola out of the glass, it tastes better. When you drink yak butter tea out of the wood, it tastes better. And this one is for chung, wine cup. When Tibetans drink something, they drink it. They drink a lot of it. This is our shot glass. The shoes, normally like a... Look at the midsole on these. The very traditional shoes. It's all handmade. If you just put Supreme back here, I mean, this is the hottest thing now. What are some really common, maybe two to three Tibetan sentences or phrases that like we can put out there? Tashi Delek have so many different meanings. Tashi Delek is welcome. Thank you. Hello. Wish you well. Good luck. You don't have to go so hard on the K, but Tashi Delek. Tashi Delek. What would be one other one that we got to say like? Tsering. So that means wish you a long life. Tashi Delek Tsering. I like it. Hell yeah, yeah. That's tight. We've got a traditional Tibetan breakfast right here. This is as authentic as it gets. We've got Tsampa in here. We've got butter tea, a little bit of yak butter as well. And also yak cheese in there. So this is also Tsampa right here, but a different style. We pray before eat in breakfast. So you would drink the liquid first, and then when you have the stuff left over, then you start kneading it together and squeezing it. Exactly. This particular style is called Akade. It's like eating with your mouth or with your tongue. I like how you drink the soup, and then you kind of lick the last bit of the soup, and then you pull it together. Yeah, just like this. And every morning, this is a very like healthy breakfast. Now you can use this, and then you put tea in here. So just like this, and then you take bite. Would you try? Yeah, I'll try it. It's buttery, slightly salty, very nutty and sticky. So right here, we've got the Shapale. So this is Shapale. Yo, I remember last time I had this a little... Oh! It's juicy. My bad. Yo, that's what I've been looking for. Hand me one of those halves immediately. Shapale. When you bite it, you gotta like suck up the juice. That's good. Shapale is a five out of five. It feels like an empanada. It's like a similar form, but man. I need to wash it down with some Puja. I noticed that this yak butter tea had a little bit more spices in it than the one at the restaurant. Last but not least. This is Tsampa cake. Something that our New York community in Queens kind of came up with. On the bottom, you've got the Tsampa. And on the top, it's our version of a vanilla ice cream. So it's a vanilla ice cream mixed in with different kinds of herbs and spices. Together, they complement each other really well. And some raisins. Oh, the raisin Tsampa cake. You know what I like about it? It tastes like something from a thousand years ago mixed with something from 10 years ago. It's very much, I mean, that's really what this dessert is. That ice cream is really good. I'm just going to make a bad health decision, but the right foodie decision. So this is a Kada. It's a silk scarf. Basically, we use it for ceremonial situations. You put it around their neck and it's almost like a Tashi Dele. If someone do something for you special or, you know, you really need to say thank you so much. So we offering for Kada. I want to offering for you first. Thank you. Thank you for coming. All right, Dan. Dan's getting the... Thank you for coming. All right, so we just left Tibetan market and now that was very traditional. And now we're heading to pretty much like how most people in 2020 might first experience Tibetan food, which is these Momo trucks. It's fun to say. It's delicious. You can fill it with a bunch of different things, right? Obviously, Momo is a really common dish in Tibet, but also the Momo truck is just easy. It's easy to make it to go. It's accessible. And a lot of people know it. And a lot of, you know, a lot of people know dumplings. I've never really got to participate in any ceremonies like that before. So this got this Kata on us. This is dope. But I got to say right behind us, Andrew, this is real Queens right here. You just park all up on the sidewalk. I don't deny I let you do this in the city. Let's go. That's why I like it. Oh no, this is not the truck. This is on the Momo. Yo, we just walking by Momo trucks to the point where I'm like... There's so many. You're going to pass like several. In this general area, I can count at least four. Some of these trucks are 24 hours. So a lot of people, when they go out and they're hungry, they'll just stop by and get Momos at like 5 a.m. That is something I did not expect that you would get drunkies in Momo. No, it really feels international right here. And I feel like I'm in... It could be New Delhi. It could be Lhasa. I don't know. Mom's Momo truck is right outside of Tenzin Salon. That is a Tibetan salon. We just landed here at Momo truck. YumYum man, tell us about Mom's Momo. So we basically opened four years ago. The reason we call it Mom's Momo is actually the recipes come from my mom. He's our big brother. Your guys' Momos at Mom's Momo taste way different than even the other Momo trucks. Mostly it's different, yeah. We really want to give the glimpse of what Momos back in Tibet taste like here. What region of Tibet are you from? Ando. How are the Momos different in each region? I wouldn't say it's big different, but the ingredients, the stuff they put inside, the thinner the skin there, the best it is. If you look at the skin, you can see the meat inside. That's good, man. I want to do it the Tibetan way, man. What he said in Ando, you're going to love these Momos. This is beef, three of each, three steamed and three fried. And this is a potato, again, three, three. And this is a veggie and this is a chicken. Wow, steamed beef. So much soup in that, wow. It really tastes like soup, fried beef. I'm dipping it in the sauce. The fried beef with the sauce. All right, I'm going for the Leping now. This is really good, too. Really refreshing. Yeah. Sort of like a contrast to the Momos, which is more hearty, oily, but in the best of ways. This is the chicken one. I got to go with steamed first, because I think if I go with fried, then the steamed just won't. It doesn't, it doesn't hunger. What's the most Momos you can eat, man? These things are, these are packing the meat. Personally, me, when I'm hungry, like a lot. Steamed chicken Momos. This is the best chicken dumpling I've ever had. The best chicken dumpling I've ever had. Because, you know, I've had chicken dumplings before, but none of them have been as juicy as this. Hey, kudos to you. I'm going to eat a whole fried one. See, I'm even getting full. That's how good this is. Honestly, these Momos are booming right now. Oh my goodness. Tastes like a really deep chicken stew inside of a Momo. Hey, I can see why Momos are blowing up, and especially Mom's Momo is selling out like hotcakes. Last but not least, what are you guys going for? I'm running out of space, so I can't eat everything. I'm going to go with steamed potato. I'm going to go with steamed veggie. Momos are really fun to eat. No, you can pick it up. It stays together. You can eat it with your hand. You can dip it. There's juice in it. There's so much going on. Personally, I really hope that, you know, you see like everybody knows Halal, right? Momo is, I want to really become like international food. If you guys want to check out, we're on here, Jackson Heights, Broadway, by the Wendy's. Okay, last but not least, on our Himalaya Heights crawl through Jackson Heights. Today, we're here at Shangri-La of Nepal. It's almost like a Himalayan shop with a bunch of different little knicks and knacks, clothes, snacks, spices. So you'll see a variety of a bunch of things. Let's go ahead downstairs. So this is kind of like your fruit leather sort of type thing. Exactly. Okay. If you guys like damba, you've got a bag of damba available right here. Oh, that's what she was mixing it in with. Yeah. The tea mix for the puja. Yak cheese. Yo, cop that. So this is churro. It's like a really popular Himalayan snack or like candy. It's just dry cheese, but it's really hard. All right, let's get it. These are the Air Zoom Everest. Of course, we had to end off on some Tibetan snacks, Himalayan snacks from the shop. They had a mystical dog in there too. Kind of like a nine-tailed Pokemon. I don't know if you guys know about that. This is amdopale. We just picked up from this truck right over here. It's Himalayan fresh food. So it's like a flatbread. Let's bust it open. I heard it's sweet. That's what she said. So do you eat it with anything or you just eat it straight up? You can eat it with like butter, tea, whatever you want. These are the dishes that when I was doing the research yesterday on Wikipedia, these are the dishes that I've seen. In my hand, I have dried yak cheese. Dried yak cheese. It's a little hard, so it stays in your mouth for a while. Yo, it's almost like emanating that same vibe from the butter tea, but just slow release. Yeah. Gotta be careful with this one not to bite it too hard. Slightly sweet. Imagine this with like butter tea though. Kind of dry, but like buttery at the same time. It's kind of hard to explain. You guys notice there's more buttery in the middle. The butter sweet flavor kind of creeps up on you. Shout out to Himalayan delight. Nature's best. So this is another version of the churro. It's called churpi. This looks like some old, like some dried smoked gouda. Whoa, whoa. Way more herbaceous than you thought. This does not taste like Western cheese. Almost like hardened butter and milk. Yo, I'm not saying this in any type of bad way. It kind of tastes like a block of wood. The longer you keep it in your mouth, like the flavor changes. I'm gonna leave it in my mouth. I'm gonna leave it in the back right there. It's a journey. I do like it better than the first one we had. So this is a mixed bun. Sometimes we call these, this one is called titora. This is called pong. And they mix it with different types of spices with sugar. You can use this as kind of spread or you just squeeze it out like a... Oh no, you just go for it. I gotta say the amdo pade, the sweet bread, that was like the most unassuming looking thing with the nicest, sweetest, buttery flavor. I would like to eat that with some other things. Do you know those Mexican candies, like the dried flan? Chamango. Chamango, yeah. Himalayan chamango style. Is that a chili in there? Yeah. That's a chili in the fruit. Let's do it. Oh, not bad. This tastes like a more raw version of like a fruit roll-up. I want to say like dried orange peel or fruit peel. It has that saltiness. It does taste like something I had before. Kind of has that sour sweetness and spiciness, almost like those tamarind candies that maybe some of you guys used to eat growing up. Yo, I like it. I like it. If you put it on something, mix it up with a little bit more sugar, it'd be perfect. Yo, it's like that pumpkin you like. So wrap it up there. Yo, big shout out to Tashi. Thank you so much for being so knowledgeable and making it fun and taking us on this little Tibetan tour. We encourage everybody else out there to check out all the Himalayan and Tibetan spots out here. Man, it's an amazing community and it's really, really good food. For sure, the chapale is the OG for me. My OG thing I love from Little Tibet. But then my new thing was the chile. I'm going to get that kampuputi, which is kind of that fragrant, herbaceous beef that's in that bread bowl. I think just doing this journey with you, I think usually when I go eat, I'll just go to one spot. But just going from one place to another, it just made me appreciate my community and my culture more. Another one of my big takeaways was that there's so many different regions. There's three major regions. They all have their own style of foods. You got usan, you got amdo, and of course, kam. That was really dope to learn that. I actually didn't know about the three different regions of Tibet, so. Man, you know, if they've been making momos for, I don't know how many centuries, let me tell you that. They're pretty damn good at this point. Definitely the chicken ones over our mom's momo was crazy. The chicken one was actually one of the best mom's things I had today, man. We got mom's momo was fire. Mom's momo was fire. Tashi Delek, Tuchelan. Thanks so much. Thank you for watching that video. And in the comments down below, let us know if there is another neighborhood around New York that we got to check out because we will be filming in Queens more. Guys, that was the Jackson Heights Tibetan episode of The World NY. Thank you so much for tuning in. Shout out to Tashi. Shout out to Jackson Heights. Shout out to Queens. We out. Peace. You know. All right, you guys. Where's the soup? Oh, that's butter too. I don't think it's a butter. Wash it down with a momo. I had to wash it down with a momo. I'm good, guys.