Consider the momo. The momo comes in many forms, but in all of them it is Nepal’s iconic snack. In the Himalayas, momos can be eaten on nearly every urban street corner and in nearly every kitchen. To call the momo a kind of dumpling would be accurate, but simplistic; it is, in fact, many kinds of dumpling. Some are formed in neat little pyramids of dough and filling, shaped like Nepal’s towering mountains, with the wrappers’ pleated folds meeting at the summit. Others are made in a more circular fashion, and their tops form a sort of crown. Yet more are folded into enormous crescent moons, and a few resemble the dumplings popular in the country’s northern neighbor, China. However you eat a momo, those bites of wrapper, filling and spice are little symbols of Nepali culture. They’re as ubiquitous and iconic in their tradition as the taco is in Mexico’s. To snack on a momo is to peer through a window onto a mountainous landscape on the far side of the world. RELATED STORIES A New Sports Bar in Irving Serves Traditional Nepali Food and Mango Lassi Vodka Shots Cafemandu Brings a Taste of Nepal to Irving — Including Nine Kinds of Momo Dumplings The best place to find momos in the United States is Jackson Heights, Queens. That neighborhood’s dozens of vendors participate in an annual “Momo Crawl” festival. The second-best place to find momos in the United States is on the suburban, asphalt-covered flatland of Irving, Texas. Irving is home to the second-largest Nepali-American population in the country, behind only New York City. Two societies, a spiritual center and at least 13 restaurants cater to the growing community. But start asking around to find out why immigrants from a cool, mountainous country are congregating in a hot, flat suburb, and the answer is surprising: Nobody quite knows how Nepal came to North Texas. *** EXPANDBrothers Pradip Giri (far left) and Ramesh Giri (far right) cook with their wives Anjana Giri (left) and Rejina Giri (right). Kathy Tran One of the prevailing theories of Nepali migration to Dallas County centers on North Lake College, the community college that serves Irving. (Disclosure: This author is a North Lake College employee.) North Lake reportedly has the largest population of Nepali students of any American college or university. According to an unofficial tally by the college’s international student center, the school has around 650 Nepali students — a number which, before the Trump administration, was nearly 900. Those numbers account for a staggering 80 percent of the college’s international student population — all from a country with a population slightly smaller than Texas’ and located 8,000 miles away. Keith Landry, one of the college’s international student advisers, isn’t sure how to explain this affinity.“I started here in 2006, and it was already 70 percent Nepalese,” Landry explains, referring to the college’s international student population. Landry says he visited Chicago a decade ago and met a Nepali-American working at Subway. “I said that I lived in Irving, Texas. ‘Oh, is that where North Lake is? I have friends who go there.’ Word of mouth.” Sailesh Bajracharya (left) and Dipesh Acharya of Cafemandu Alison McLean But not everyone in the community here attended North Lake, and anyone trying to explain why Irving became a Nepali enclave faces a chicken-and-egg conundrum. Many NLC students from Nepal say they came to Irving because they had family already here. But many of the locals say their families came here because of North Lake. Ramesh Giri, one of two brothers who attended North Lake and now jointly own MoMo To Go, sums up the conundrum neatly. “The people who came here in the ’80s and ’90s, they started making Dallas home,” he says. “Another reason is North Lake College and the DCCCD colleges. I went there. All of my friends and all of my relatives went there. The younger populations are because of the school. The people with the families are because there’s someone they know.” The prevailing theory inside North Lake’s International Center is that the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, which began issuing visas in 1995, opened up the United States to migration from Nepal, and that in the following years Nepali immigrants arrived at the college and in the city almost immediately. Why they chose this corner of Texas is still unknown. The entire wave of migration may well have started with just one or two people who told their friends and family about Irving, or about its community college. Other local schools contribute to the population, too. Dipesh Acharya, manager of Cafemandu Flavors of Nepal, moved to Irving after attending Texas State University in San Marcos. Bipin Thakali, one of the partners at Peak Restaurant, came to the U.S. to get a pilot’s license at a school in Arlington, which has since moved to Fort Worth. Although Thakali’s background is slightly different, his theory of how Nepal came to Irving still revolves around education. “North Lake is in Irving, you know, and UTA is in Arlington, so it’s right in the middle,” Thakali speculates. “Some students take classes at North Lake and classes in Arlington and stay in the middle.” In 2015, when a devastating earthquake struck Nepal and left almost 9,000 people dead and millions homeless, the student body at North Lake College responded by donating blankets, clothing and more than $8,000 in cash. Two Nepali students returned home with $4,000 each. In an interview with the college’s student newspaper, Sudip Hamal recalled spending his share to pack trucks with food and drive them to a remote village in the Sindhupalchok District, where the earthquake had destroyed 97 percent of homes. “It was a four-hour drive each way,” Hamal told the North Lake College News-Register. “With that money, we helped 200 families. We distributed edibles, things like rice and cereal for them to eat.” *** Steamed momos with dipping sauces at Cafemandu Alison McLean There must be 50 ways to eat a momo. The dumpling’s traditional fillings can involve ground chicken, goat, lamb, yak or, most commonly, water buffalo. Vegetarian fillings are increasingly common; pork momos exist, too, and Peak Restaurant in Irving daringly serves beef momos, even though 80 percent of Nepal is Hindu. (Small minorities of the country are Buddhist, Muslim or some localized combination of those faiths.) Steamed momos are the simplest order of all: The dumplings come out of the steamer basket with little more than a side order of dipping sauce. Pan-fried and even deep-fried momos can be had, and so can fried momos coated in a zestful rub of seasonings, herbs and diced red onions. Cafemandu is the only restaurant in Irving — and, according to its owners, the only restaurant in the United States — to serve sweet momos for dessert, with a creamy dairy filling. Dairy lovers can pick up a savory alternative at Cafemandu, too: “cheesy white” momo, covered in “creamy cheese” sauce. For many Nepali-Americans, the perfect cold-weather comfort food is steamed momos served in a hot broth. Jhol momo is, in essence, dumpling soup, with a richly aromatic broth made with tomatoes, chili peppers, cumin, and herbs and spices native to the Himalayas. C-momo at Cafemandu Alison McLean One of the most beloved of all preparations has its own shorthand: “C-momo,” short for “chili momo,” or, as many menus insist on spelling it, “chilly momo.” However it is named, chili momo is a steamed or pan-fried order coated with a richly spicy, deep-red sauce founded on the flavor base of indigenous hot peppers. Chili momo, too, comes in many varieties. At Cafemandu, it’s got a subtle heat that may seem innocuous at first but builds in power with every successive bite. Just across Northgate Drive, inside the Texaco station on the