Some friends and I recently decided to to venture down to the Tibetan Kitchen Restaurant, which is located in the old Iguanas Ranas building in the North End on Main Street. We soon discovered that the restaurant was celebrating only its third day in business, and the enthusiastic staff served us free rice pudding for dessert in honor of the occasion.
The restaurant’s decor marks a dramatic transformation from the hole-in-the-wall taqueria that used to inhabit the space.
The walls have been painted a deep red, and the chairs and tables match something out of an Italian restaurant. A photo of his Holiness the Dalai Lama gazes down on patrons, and pictures of yaks and Tibetan monasteries decorate the walls.
The restaurant was opened by a Tibetan couple who have lived in Middletown for the past few years. Co-owners Sherab and his girlfriend Tsering, both from India, used to run a Tibetan restaurant in Delhi.
“Our food is all home cooking—Tsering cooks all of the food and that is what makes us different,” Sherab said. “Momos are a little different than Chinese dumplings because they are made fresh and are more juicy.”
Tsering has lived in the United States for the past eight years and owned the Tibetan Market store until it closed recently. Sherab moved to Middletown in 2008 to join her, and they have been planning on opening up their own Tibetan restaurant for a while. At last, this restaurant is a culmination of their joint venture.
The menu is filled with various noodle soups and dumplings with plenty of vegetarian options. We started out with steaming cups of sweet chai and decided to pass on the Tingmo, Tibetan steamed bread, in order to save room for the main course.
Having recently eaten a wide variety of Tibetan food in Ladakh in North India, I knew exactly what I wanted to order upon arrival. The dish that I most highly recommend is thenthuk ($8.50), which is a soup filled with hand-pulled noodles as well as vegetables and tofu. My friends also ordered thukpa ($7.50), a noodle soup with spaghetti-like noodles, and shogo mok-tak ($7.50), pan-fried dumplings served with a cabbage salad.
The food arrived quickly and the soups were flavorful, although a bit low on vegetables. The thenthuk noodles were delightfully thick and soaked up the broth adequately, but the thukpa noodles were rather bland and not as exciting. Our order of momos took a bit longer than expected, so our server brought us a complimentary plate of dumplings during the wait. The momos were filled with mashed potatoes and pan-friend vegetables, and served with two types of sauces.
The menu also included a variety of other dishes such as fried rice, stir-fried noodles, and different types of Tibetan curries. While the soups definitely satisfied my craving for comfort food and warmth, next time I plan to sample one of the stir-fries.
While the food at Tibetan Kitchen Restaurant was satisfying and cozy, especially after a long, cold walk down from campus, the excitement and curiosity from the staff made the visit truly worthwhile.