The Himalayan Yak Restaurant presents you with four menus – Indian, Tibetan, Nepali and “Exotic Himalayan”. The time I went, there was a great ambiance, a truly multi-national-ethnic clientele having a good time.  The restaurant has a pretty lively bar which you can eat at, but has no Himalayan beers (is there such a thing).  I would definitely go back to this place.

The Dumplings – the Himalayan Yak Restaurant has steamed or fried momo filled with beef, chicken, pork, yak or potato. Since I no longer eat beef or chicken, I went for the Yak Momo, which were delicious.

Steamed yak dumplings

The waiter told me that steaming was the way to go for Yak Momo, so that is what I ordered. The Momo were super juicy, almost full on soup dumplings. They were steaming hot so, like with Chinese soup dumplings, the best way to approach them is to bite a small hole in the wrapper and suck the juice out of the dumpling first. The yak tasted somewhat like beef, and was minced with green onion and some herds that the waiter refused to identify. Contrary to my expectations given the name of the restaurant, the Yak meat is from a farm in Vermont and is only available seasonally.

The Dipping Sauces – the Momo came with a trio of sauces – the green, the orange and the red. The waiter was willing to reveal that the green was made of avocado and tomatillo, the orange was tomato and sesame seed and the red was chili. All three were quite good and their degree of spiciness reflected there traffic light colors.

Spicy dipping sauces

The Location – Take the 7 train to the Jackson Heights 74th Street Stop or the E train to the Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Ave stop – both routes take about 20 minutes from midtown Manhattan.