Savor Scout › Food guides › Momos
How to find good momos
Momos are Himalayan dumplings, eaten across Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan and northeast India. They are often the best thing on a Nepali restaurant's menu, and a plate is cheap enough to try several kinds.
What separates a good one from a bad one
- Handmade and pleated — Uneven pleats are a good sign. Uniform shapes usually mean frozen.
- Juicy filling — Seasoned meat with onion, ginger, garlic and cilantro. The best ones release juice when bitten.
- Achar that is bright — Tomato-sesame dipping sauce with timur pepper, tangy and a little numbing.
- Several styles — Steamed, fried, kothey (pan-fried) and jhol (in soup).
- Made fresh daily — Shops that run out are usually the best ones.
What to order
- Steamed chicken or buff momo — To start.
- Jhol momo — In a spicy, tangy broth.
- Kothey momo — Pan-fried on one side.
- C-momo — Chilli momo, tossed in spicy sauce.
- Vegetable momo — For vegetarians.
Where to find Momos
Momos is mostly found at Nepalese restaurants and Tibetan restaurants, so that is where to look. Open listings put 410 of them across the US, and these are the cities and campuses with the most.
Cities with the most
New York, NY 15 Irving, TX 13 San Francisco, CA 10 Chicago, IL 10 Salt Lake City, UT 7 Euless, TX 7 Akron, OH 7 Boulder, CO 6
Campuses with the most within a mile
UC Berkeley 4 LaGuardia 4 Berkeley City College 4 UVM 3 National Louis University 3 DePaul University 3
A few to start with
- Lhasa — New York, NY
177 1st Ave, New York - Desi Rasoi — Irving, TX
1129 N Coker St, Irving - Dancing Yak — San Francisco, CA
280 Valencia St, San Francisco - Himalayan Sherpa Kitchen — Chicago, IL
518 W Harrison St, Chicago - Zimbu — Salt Lake City, UT
28 S State St, Salt Lake City - Thamel Beer Garden — Euless, TX
501 N Main St, Euless
Counts are listings in Overture Maps open data (September 2026), counted by the town in each address. Independent places only in the examples above, and they are a starting point rather than a ranking.
How Savor Scout looks for it
The search reads for momo, handmade, jhol and achar, and favours Nepali and Tibetan kitchens over Indian menus that include momos as an add-on.
Looking in a particular city?
Each of these opens Savor Scout with the location already set, so you can say what you want and it searches from there. It covers 1,000 US cities in total — these are simply the largest.
- New York, NY
- Los Angeles, CA
- Chicago, IL
- Houston, TX
- Philadelphia, PA
- Phoenix, AZ
- San Antonio, TX
- San Diego, CA
- Dallas, TX
- San Jose, CA
- Austin, TX
- Indianapolis, IN
- Jacksonville, FL
- San Francisco, CA
- Columbus, OH
- Charlotte, NC
- Fort Worth, TX
- Detroit, MI
- El Paso, TX
- Memphis, TN
- Seattle, WA
- Denver, CO
- Washington, DC
- Boston, MA
- Nashville, TN
- Baltimore, MD
- Oklahoma City, OK
- Louisville, KY
- Portland, OR
- Las Vegas, NV
- Milwaukee, WI
- Albuquerque, NM
- Tucson, AZ
- Fresno, CA
- Sacramento, CA
- Long Beach, CA
- Kansas City, MO
- Mesa, AZ
- Virginia Beach, VA
- Atlanta, GA
- Colorado Springs, CO
- Omaha, NE
- Raleigh, NC
- Miami, FL
- Oakland, CA
- Minneapolis, MN
- Tulsa, OK
- Cleveland, OH
- Wichita, KS
- Arlington, TX
- New Orleans, LA
- Bakersfield, CA
- Tampa, FL
- Honolulu, HI
- Aurora, CO
- Anaheim, CA
- Santa Ana, CA
- St. Louis, MO
- Riverside, CA
- Corpus Christi, TX
Related food guides
Nepali food, Tibetan food, dumplings