Momos...the new snack on the block

Momos is fast becoming popular in the capital.

New Delhi, June 28: What better way to catch up with old friends than to exchange gossip over plates of steaming hot momos and chilled fruit beer? Momos. The snack is fast becoming popular in the capital.Served with soup and a spicy red chilli chutney, momos are the new favourite snack, be it at a roadside stall, shopping mall or hotel.

Steamed momos are a healthy alternative to other street foods like samosas, chaat and pakoras, and a favourite with weight-watchers too. Roadside stalls have mushroomed in most Delhi markets and the steamed dumplings sell for as little as Rs 3-4 per piece. However, students and young professionals still swear by the momos at Dilli Haat and Yashwant place in Chanakyapuri. For Reeti and her friends, no college reunion is complete without fruit beer and momos at Dilli Haat. "We meet at Dillihaat once a year and the session starts with a plate of momos. The conversation begins only after a few gulps of fruit beer," says Reeti, who works at an NGO. Momos, which originated in Tibet, are traditionally steamed flour dumplings with chicken, mutton or pork fillings. "Vegetable filled momos with cabbage, onions and carrots are popular in India. Traditionally, it is a meat filling," says Dharma Lama, a partie chef at the Lalit, New Delhi. Cheap and easy to prepare, the bite-sized dumplings have become a perennial favourite of Delhiites. "A momo is actually one kind of a dimsum. We are offering a pint of beer, a soup and dessert with dimsums for lunch as part of the ongoing Dimsum festival at our hotel," adds Lama. With a profit margin of 70 per cent, momos are almost as easily available as Chinese noodles. In Kolkata`s Tangra area, inhabited primarily by Chinese settlers, there is an entire street where momos are also served alongside noodles and soup. "For the best momos in Kolkata, head to Lee road, just off Chowringhee. There are a few Tibetan restaurants there and you can get a plate of six chicken momos for as little as Rs 40," says Samshuddha Majumdar, a legal consultant in Kolkata. In Mumbai, however, momos are not as popular as the evergreen vada-pao, as locals say it is not a substitute for a meal. "I would not have liked momos if I had not tried them on holiday in Darjeeling. But momos in Mumbai are not so good. My friends prefer noodles and I was the one who told them about momos," says Pallavi, who works in a private bank in Andheri. Bureau Report