One recipe, three kitchens, eighteen years
The (fictional) story of how Target Momo House came to be — and why we still refuse to buy a dumpling machine.
Nine stools, one steamer, no menu boards
Bishnu and Sarita Gurung arrived in Queens in 2004 with two suitcases and a hand-copied notebook of recipes that had never been measured in cups or grams.
For three years they cooked for other people's restaurants. Then a narrow storefront on a side street came up for lease — nine stools, a single burner, a back room barely wide enough to roll dough in. They took it, painted the front red because it was the only paint on sale, and opened with one item: steamed chicken momos, ten to a plate, four dollars.
The first week they sold thirty-one plates. The second week, the line reached the corner. Word had traveled the way it always does — through neighbors, taxi drivers and one very enthusiastic nurse from the hospital two blocks over who brought her entire night shift.
Why momos, and why here
Momos are, in Sarita's words, "an excuse to sit down with people." In Kathmandu they are street food, family food and celebration food at once — the thing you eat standing up on a cold afternoon and also the thing you make in a crowd of relatives the night before a wedding.
What the Gurungs wanted to bring across was not just the dumpling. It was the table around it: loud, generous, unhurried, and open to whoever walked in. That idea is the reason our dining rooms have more round tables than a restaurant our size should, and why the biggest item on the menu is designed for four people to argue over.
Eighteen years, roughly summarized
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2007
A nine-seat counter opens
One steamer, one filling, one price. The menu is a chalkboard and the hours are "until the dough runs out."
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2011
The menu finally grows
Chow mein, thukpa and the first vegetarian momo join the board after four years of daily requests. The chalkboard is retired for a printed menu.
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2015
Midtown flagship opens
A proper dining room on Lexington Avenue with an open prep line, forty-eight seats and the red paint carried over on purpose.
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2019
Jhol momos change everything
A weekend special becomes the most-ordered plate on the menu within a month and never leaves it again.
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2022
Arlington, Virginia
Our second kitchen opens, run by a chef who started with us in 2013 washing dishes on weekends while finishing school.
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2024
Austin, Texas
The third kitchen, and the first with a dedicated dessert-momo steamer. Texas took the chocolate momos personally.
We have thrown away more momos than we have sold in a bad week
A momo has four failure points: the thickness of the wrapper, the moisture of the filling, the seal of the pleat and the timing of the steam. Miss any one and you get a dumpling that is technically fine and completely forgettable.
Our kitchen runs a taste check three times a day — morning, pre-lunch and pre-dinner — and any batch that is off gets pulled. It is expensive. It is also the entire reason people describe our food the way they do.
11 minutes
Steam time, never rushed
18 pleats
The house standard fold
Growth, carefully
We get asked about franchising roughly once a month. The answer has been no eighteen times, because we have not yet worked out how to hand someone a recipe that depends on tasting the filling.
What we are doing instead: a fourth kitchen in the Northeast in 2027, a proper catering operation for offices and family events, and a training program that turns line cooks into kitchen leads within two years — the same path our Arlington chef took. Slower than a franchise. Considerably more likely to still taste right in a decade.
Hungry yet? Your momos are 20 minutes away.
Order online for pickup or delivery, or reserve a table and let us take care of the rest.