When we first moved to Oxford we rented a pocket-sized printer’s house in Jericho and spent most of our time searching out leg room on Port Meadow. Yeshi admired the cows and the horses, but mostly for their manure: soon he bought a wheelbarrow and he would fill it with Port Meadow poo and walk it over for use on our nearby allotment. We must have been quite the talking point among the many retired head teachers and other north Oxford professionals who tended their plots there.

We didn’t really know anyone then so we had nothing to fear. Anonymity was fine thing. These days we live, work and the kids go to school all within a half-mile radius: we have to be on good behaviour every time we leave the house.

But back then Oxford was new to us both. Yeshi didn’t tell his family that we had landed in an alien world. We had just had a baby and he said they wouldn’t understand why we’d choose to live in a place where we had no one around us to help. In Tibet, families stay together as they grow: the house just expands to accommodate new wives/babies, and so on.

Luckily we built a community over time, and maybe it was always going to be food that made it happen – after all, it was Yeshi’s cooking that had sealed the deal for me in the first place. Momos were a feature of early get-togethers at our house with other first-time mums and dads, and Yeshi’s hand-built barbecues in our tiny back garden helped us along too: his marinated prime meat cuts + mushrooms, sliced potatoes, aubergines and other vegetables that British BBQs tend to overlook became the stuff of local legend.

But it wasn’t a linear thing. Yeshi tried his hand at a different kind of market stall first. His first public outing in Gloucester Green (pictured) was not a momo stop, but rather a Tibetan gift emporium – he sold hand-made cards and picture frames, baby booties, shawls and plenty more we still have stashed away in our attic (anyone interested in these? Surely we can find space for them inside TT).

Thank you to everyone who has welcomed us into our adopted city over the years – when you come through the doors to our restaurant we marvel every time at the community we have found.

We’re open the usual hours this week, as follows:

Wednesday: 5-9.30pm (dinner only)
Thursday – Saturday: 12-3 (lunch) / 5-9.30pm (dinner)

Our menu is out now – check the website for full details. Come for dine in, hot food takeaway or freezer food, our chilli oil and signed copies of our cookbook.

A heads up that we’ll be closed for the week of 20th February. Not half-term week (we’re open then), but the one after. Yeshi needs to make a short trip to India – more on that in next week’s newsletter (are you signed up? There’s an offer or freebie inside every time! Find the link at the bottom of this page).

Looking forward to seeing you soon,

Julie and Yeshi

Opening hours this week:
Weds: 5-9.30pm
Thurs – Sat: 12-3pm 🥢 5-9.30pm
☏ 01865 499318

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