“I was born in a refugee camp in Nepal. When I opened a momo restaurant in Parkdale, it became part of the community”

In 1959, after the Dalai Lama fled Tibet and China took over, my parents left their village to seek asylum in Kathmandu, Nepal. They were one of the first families to settle in the camp, and that’s where I was born, in June of 1971. At least, that’s the date on my passport. My parents were nomads: they grew up with no education, couldn’t read or write and didn’t know for sure when I was born. I had eight siblings, and only four of us survived past childhood.

The Nepalese government was kind to us. They set up our camp, built us shelters and gave us jobs so we didn’t starve. My dad worked in construction, building roads, and my mother wove Tibetan carpets while raising me and my siblings. We had no running water and no bathrooms. Until I was five or six, we used dew from the grass to clean ourselves and went to the bathroom in the mountains. But the Nepalese government gave us drinking water and allowed us to practise Buddhism and celebrate our culture without being persecuted. That was more than enough.

In the late ’60s and early ’70s, China loosened its grip on Tibet, and it became easier for its citizens to travel. Many Tibetans visited Nepal, and they brought my dad, an elder in our camp, artifacts and antiques that they feared the Chinese government would steal. My dad would buy them and resell them to foreigners in the streets of Kathmandu.

In those days, the city was full of hippies from Europe and the United States with money in their pockets. It was a cheap place to travel to, and foreigners were attracted to the arts and cultures of the East. They also liked that cannabis and hashish were legal and openly sold in government-licensed shops—most of which were located on the famous Freak Street. They would buy my dad’s artifacts for dirt cheap, bring them to Singapore and sell them to Sotheby’s for much higher prices. By the time I was born, my dad had saved up some money and decided to open a restaurant on Freak Street. It was one of the first Tibetan restaurants in Nepal.

Despite his lack of formal education, my father was a great businessman. I learned at a young age that if you have talent, you can sell a rock for the price of a diamond. When I was six, I sold my mother’s Tibetan-style potatoes on the street for pocket money. Selling was in my blood, but my parents wanted more for me. By 1977, with the success of my father’s restaurant, my parents could afford to send me and my siblings to a boarding school in northern India.

By the time I returned from school, in 1990, my dad had closed his restaurant and opened Passang Arts, an antique store that sold Tibetan carpets, which were trendy at the time. He started on Freak Street and in the late ‘80s moved to the Kingsway, the poshest street in the city.

Then, the following year, my dad passed away. We’re not sure what he died of exactly, but he’d never fully recovered from the harsh journey from Tibet to Kathmandu. It was tough on his body, and without access to proper health care, he, like many others in our community who’d made the same trek, turned to alcohol to ease his discomfort. The business was left to me, a 20-year-old kid unused to having more than 10 dollars in my pocket.

The first thing I did was install a rotary phone. Previously, if customers in the West wanted to buy something, they would have to travel to Kathmandu. But, with the phone, people could place orders from anywhere, and our customer base expanded across the globe. I travelled around the world selling our carpets and worked with designers, art collectors and gallery owners. Running a business was thrilling. A career highlight was putting together a Tibetan antique carpet exhibition at a museum in Rome with gallerist and art historian Enzo Danon, who was one of my clients.

In 1995, I married my wife, Kunsang Dekyi. She gave birth to our son, Tenzing, later that year. By this time, there was political unrest in Nepal. The communist party had infiltrated the country, and civil war was brewing. On top of that, health care was poor. In 2001, my siblings began to flee to the US, and an aunt moved to Toronto. Then, the following year, my wife lost our twin daughters, one in childbirth, the other a few days later. I still remember how beautiful they both were, and I think about what we could have had if we’d left Nepal sooner. We had to get out.

In 2005, Kunsang became pregnant again. We decided to move to Canada, where she could get proper care and our children would have more opportunities. Kunsang went first, moving to the west end with my aunt and giving birth to our second son, Tenzin Yeshi, at St. Michael’s Hospital. She was granted political asylum and was able to bring Tenzing, then nine, over.

I wrapped things up with my store, and in 2008, I joined them. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment on Jameson Avenue in Parkdale. I knew the owner of Elte, Ken Metric, through a colleague in the rug industry, and he offered me a job selling carpets. I worked there for two years, doubling my target each year.

My wife trained to become a nurse, and our kids were in school. Life was good. In December of 2011, I was having lunch with a friend who owned the original Tibet Kitchen on Queen West, and he asked if I wanted to buy his restaurant. I thought he was joking, so I laughed and said, “Of course.” A few weeks later, he asked me when we were going to finalize the deal. I realized then that he wasn’t joking. To me, in business, your word is everything. I didn’t know what I’d gotten myself into, but my wife was an excellent cook, and I knew how to run a business. Even though I’d never worked in the restaurant industry, a customer is a customer, and if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s sell. So I quit my job and bought the restaurant. By February of 2012, I was running it.

My wife left her nursing job to join me. She redid the menu with all of her recipes, and I ran the front of house. Together, we built a loyal customer base. Parkdale was just beginning to gentrify, and there was energy in the neighbourhood. Craig Pike of Craig’s Cookies and Ashley Jacot De Boinod of Glory Hole Donuts had just started their businesses nearby. We’d share our leftovers and tell our customers about one another, cross-promoting by word of mouth. It felt like the beginning of something prosperous.

We hosted weddings, fundraisers and birthday parties at the restaurant. My customers weren’t just patrons; they became my community. One year, our landlord tried to raise the rent, so I asked one of our regulars, a developer in Parkdale, if the new price was fair. He told me to call him the next time our landlord came in. I did, and the two talked for a while. Our landlord ended up not raising the rent.

In 2014, we bought a home in Etobicoke. Our restaurants continued to flourish, and by 2019, I decided it was time to grow the business. Toronto had momos, but not like the ones my wife made. She had been doing food research on YouTube and wanted to reinterpret traditional momos for the modern palate. She did things like coat traditional dough in panko, stuff it with potatoes and cheddar, and deep-fry it to mimic the flavours of mac and cheese. Later that year, we opened The MoMo House Parkdale. The concept resonated with people.

In 2021, despite the challenges of the pandemic, we opened The MoMo House Bay Street. Then, in 2022, The MoMo House Danforth. That same year, we bought a building at Queen and Euclid for $3.7 million to house what was going to be our biggest restaurant yet. The plan was to serve a mix of Indian and Chinese cuisine, with momos alongside noodle dishes and stir-fried meats. But Covid eventually had its impact on our restaurants, and business took a hit. In March of 2023, we had to close Tibet Kitchen and sell the Queen West building, which we offloaded for $2.9 million. We also sold our home in Etobicoke to make up for the cash loss.

It was a difficult period, but there are ups and downs in business, and like my father, I never give up. Traffic at our Momo House locations has picked up, and we’re on a gentle upswing. So I’m returning to Parkdale to start again—it’s become my Freak Street. This November, I’m opening a 2,400-square-foot restaurant serving Hakka and Tibetan food and my wife’s incredible momos. I’m addicted to the buzz of a busy restaurant: meeting new people every day, welcoming my regulars into our space and seeing customers smile when they eat my wife’s cooking. Even though I’ve experienced hardship, I won’t quit. After all, I am a man from the mountains, and I’ll never stop climbing.