Dishin' on the Dish: C Momo at Himalayan Sherpa Kitchen

What’s cookin’ in and around Chicago? Here’s a closer look at one of the area’s delicious dishes you don’t want to miss.

Bhim Rai grew up in the northern part of Nepal about three hours away from Mount Everest cooking with his mom. One of the things they would make is thali, a Nepalese home cooking staple consisting of rice, lentils, vegetables and pickles.

He left home in 1992 and cooked in kitchens in Germany and England before coming to the U.S. and settling in Chicago. While he would cook in restaurants that served Nepalese and Tibetan food, many of those places leaned heavily on Indian dishes, focusing more on that country’s flavors.

When Rai (along with three other partners who have now moved on to other restaurants) opened Himalayan Sherpa Kitchen in Lincoln Square in 2019, it was time to focus on “our cuisine,” he said, highlighting unique, less common dishes of Tibet and Nepal alongside Indian favorites.

At Himalayan Sherpa Kitchen, some of the most popular dishes include sephaley, an empanada-like dish stuffed with minced chicken and slow cooked in Himalayan spices and rubbed in ghee; thentuk, a noodle soup with chicken and vegetables, and, of course, his beloved thali, with daal (yellow lentils), goat and gundruk ko achar, a pickle made from fermented mustard greens that manager Binita, Rai’s wife, drives to a market in Aurora to source specifically. More unique dishes include a pumpkin curry with mustard seed, fenugreek and ginger, and soon a rice flour sweet dumpling called yomari.

The expansive menu features many familiar Indian dishes such as butter chicken and chicken tikka masala. There are a lot of similarities between Indian and Nepalese cuisines and they share common ingredients, Rai said, but the addition of herbs like timut (Sichuan peppercorns) and jimbu (aromatic stalks of wild onion and garlic that grow in the Himalayan hillside of Nepal) make it distinctly Nepalese.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

The signature dish is the fiery C Momo (or chile momo), a fried dumpling filled with chicken or vegetables and then served in a multilayered chile sauce with bell peppers, onions and ginger. Rai said it is inspired by the popular Indo-Chinese fusion dish chicken chile. They sell at least 20 orders a day, if not more.

The wrappers are made by hand in-house, starting with a dough made of flour and water. After a 30-minute rest, it’s then rolled out and cut into circles ready to be filled with a mixture of ground chicken, chopped onion, ginger-garlic paste, coriander, chile and hot oil. The dumpling is formed by making pleats and then creating a top knot. The plump pouches are then fried.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

As the momo are fried, the sauce comes together in a separate pan, starting off with a base of green pepper, onions, tomato, fresh sliced ginger and chiles sauteed in olive oil. Rai then adds soy sauce, ketchup, a housemade tomato “secret” sauce, Sriracha sauce and vinegar to the pan. Altogether there are about nine different kinds of chiles in the dish. Once the flavors are all melded together, the hot momo are plunged into and coated with the sauce, but the homemade wrapper retains its crispiness.

The dish is vibrant with complementary but distinct details: The onions and bell pepper in the sauce are crisp and sweet, the chicken laced with the spices and different layers of chili that slowly blooms before it reaches peak fierceness — when you first eat the dumpling, it’s deceptively not spicy until the heat starts tickling your tastebuds before you start sweating. (Rai said it’s a popular dish that goes well with a Nepalese beer.)

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

While he can make it less spicy, it’s not something he recommends because the taste won’t be the same. But those wary of spice can try the other dumplings, such as the Himalayan Sherpa Special with sauces on the side.

“Whoever comes we recommend [to diners] it’s very spicy. If you prefer [spicy], then you can go for it. This is our recognized dish. If you can’t do spicy, then better go with another dish,” Rai said.

The dark wood walls of the small restaurant feature majestic and serene photos of the Himalayan mountains, including Tilicho Lake (one of the world’s highest altitude lakes) and Mount Everest near Rai’s home. The restaurant will celebrate its five-year anniversary in July and the team is already looking forward to bringing even more unique Nepalese dishes to Chicago and perhaps beyond.

“I’m very happy to make my home cuisine in Chicago,” Rai said, adding, “and maybe in the future other cities.”

Himalayan Sherpa Kitchen, 2701 W. Lawrence Ave. The C Momo costs $15.95.