Momos and Dosas Take Diners On a Journey Through Southeast Asia at Tapori

Eater

a day ago

On March 12, two days before H Street's anticipated Southeast Asian restaurant opened, head chef Baburam Sharma finally touched down in D.C. After developing Tapori's menu over Zoom for over a year, months of visa delays, and over 20 hours of travel from Nepal, Sharma headed directly from his hotel to the Northeast kitchen that executive chef Suresh Sundas had built for them.
'I just put my luggage in the room and came here, and we started prep,' he recounted. Sundas, who has been recognized by the Michelin Guide for his inventive cooking at neighborhood spot Daru, says that he and Sharma immediately clicked. They had been workshopping a complex menu spanning popular street foods from all over India and their shared birthplace of Nepal while 7,000 miles apart. But once they were together, those dishes evolved even more.
From workshopping new ingredients, like pesto and pine nuts in the fragrant mushroom pilau, to finally having Sharma's expertise on South Indian techniques, they began to perfect Tapori's key dishes.
These three represent their commitment to recreating Southeast Asian street foods from distinct regions in an American kitchen: momos from Nepal; dosas from Tamil Nadu; and bison phav bhaji from Mumbai.
Sharma explains that while there are only two Himalayan snacks on the menu, one of them had to be a momo. 'The most selling item in Nepal is the momo,' he said. 'You will find the momo everywhere, every state... even in India.'
The steamed dumplings from Nepal and Tibet are usually filled with vegetables or minced meat, traditionally chicken, pork, or lamb. For Sundas, the lesser known wagyu beef momo at Tapori is an homage to a food memory from 45 years ago that still haunts him.
A momo shop a block away from his father's business was his daily indulgence while growing up in Nepal. He still smiles as he describes 'the smell of that momo… Oh my god.' He's been trying to recreate that 'texture of the wrap' and meat filling ever since, but he's never been able to without those 'pure local ingredients.' So he decided he would do something more original.
Instead of a small bowl of richly flavored broth sometimes served beside momos in Nepal, the wagyu beef momos at Tapori come swimming in a chicken stock that is simmered for four hours and seasoned with Nepalese session peppers, garlic, and leeks. The wagyu filling is seasoned simply as well, with chili, ginger, cilantro, and a little soy sauce. The similar seasonings meld together the two different proteins, while a bit of cilantro oil drizzled on at the end cuts through the rich flavors.
Sundas was laser-focused on producing the best dosa possible: 'Every single day we are working on it together,' he says. He had started his culinary career in D.C. in 2007 working at South Indian restaurants and he knew that he had to show diners 'the taste of a very authentic dosa.' He found many dosas in the District were more crepe-like. They were missing that sour fermented flavor and thin texture with a satisfying crunch. That's where Sharma came in. He had started his career in five-star hotel kitchens in the southernmost state of Tamil Nadu and had made dozens of dosa almost daily for 15 years.
They create Tapori's creamy and fermented batter over two days. The process of soaking the lentils and rice for at least four hours and cleaning the grains 10 to 12 times is repeated twice before they are ground up in a specially-ordered, massive dosa grinder from India, which they converted themselves to work with an American power grid. Salt and sugar are added for an eight-hour fermentation period to keep the batter at room temperature overnight.
Sundas and Sharma are also grilling up each dosa at Tapori right now, expertly spreading out and flipping 40 to 50 a day with an 'intuition' that comes with years of practice. The flavor punch of podi masala, a combination of seeds and spices known as gunpowder seasoning, plus a potato filling and nutty ghee that are added to the batter as it fries up on their grill. It's served with an array of stews and coconut chutney, though that crispy texture and spicy, fermented flavor makes it easy to eat on its own.
Sundas says that labor intensive process pays off when Indian and Indian American diners tell him that the dosa is 'exactly how they got it in India.'
Tapori is named after rowdy Mumbai street culture, so it had to include the city's favorite internationally-influenced street food: phav bhaji. The hearty snack is comprised of buttered buns (originally from Portuguese immigrants) and stewed potato and pea curry, but Sundas wanted to create a flavorful meat version that stood out from the chicken or fish dishes on the menu.
After trying to source local water buffalo meat from West Virginia, he finally settled on bison from Texas that's cooked down with tomato paste, onion, minced garlic, green chili, and cumin paste. Cilantro and butter are added after a little over a half hour of stewing to balance out the heavy umami flavors. The buns add even more butter to the mix with a recipe that was developed in-house. The chefs are proofing and baking the buns themselves on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the total process taking about three hours. On busier weekend shifts, artisan wholesale bakery Uptown Bakers makes buns based on the Tapori team's original recipe.
Why create your own buns half the week when you have a great supplier? It's the same reason that Sundas and Sharma fold fresh momos if they run out of their prepped dumplings after a long night of service. They'll dig into the dough and wagyu filling they saved for the next day instead of saying they're sold out, because they're devoted to making each dish perfectly for every customer that walks through Tapori's door. See More: DC Restaurant News
Inside The Dishes