Sometimes we get so stuck in the day-to-day that we can forget where we’ve come from. The journalist Etain O’Carroll may be right in saying that there’s a love story worthy of Hollywood behind these scenes. It’s good to be reminded. If I hadn’t struck up conversation with Yeshi on a mountain path in northern India, Magdalen Road would be momo-less – can you imagine?
Yes – we met in the shadows of the Himalayan foothills. This was the olden days, you know, when talking to strangers was a bit less terrifying. The date is cemented into my brain, but not into Yeshi’s. He’s very loose on these things: anniversaries, birthdays etc. were not traditionally marked in Tibet.
It was November 13th, and it just so happens that eleven years later we opened our restaurant on the same date. We didn’t plan it that way. It was 2020, and all planning had gone out the window months before. Like everyone else during Covid, we were just getting through one day at a time. We spent most of the year doing up our new space while running deliveries to doorsteps and car parks far and wide for a few pennies in between. In the end, we just had to open. And it happened that the timing was good for November 13th, but also that November 13th fell right in the middle of the government’s second lockdown.
No bother: the people came out anyway. The Oxford Mail ran a piece on our restaurant a couple of months later, featuring this photo (above) of the queues on our opening night. They stretched all the way to the end of the block (these were the days of social distancing, but still!).
In fact, we never wanted to open a restaurant. Taste Tibet started life in 2014 as a market and festival food stall. The nomadic life worked for us and felt familiar: Yeshi was a real life nomad back in the day and I had been living abroad for many years before we both landed here in the UK in 2011.
But wherever we pitched up, everyone would always ask, “where is your restaurant?”. It got to the point that we started writing it into our menu board: “WE DON’T HAVE A RESTAURANT”. Eventually, we figured maybe we should just open one.
This Saturday 15th November (12-3pm) we are marking five years of momos, laughs and community on Magdalen Road. Weather dependent, we might have dumplings out on the pan: we know you love and miss these from our market days. There will be FREE MOMOS for everyone who follows our journey here on Substack. Sign up here and we’ll send you a unique access code.
Here are our opening hours for the week, in full:
Weds – Fri: 5-9.30pm (dinner only)
Saturday: 12-3 (Happy birthday to us!) / 5-9.30pm
Sunday: 12-3 / 5-9pm
This week’s menu is up on the website – check it. Drop by for dine in, take away and a wide range of freezer food, now including family-sized boxes. We’ve also got job lots of mooli pickle and sepen chilli oil in the house, so we’re all ready for Christmas (we said it). A heads up that we won’t be sending out jars this year as we had such a to-do with Royal Mail last time around, so if you’re in the market for any of these goodies please come and see us.
Looking forward to having you in!
Julie and Yeshi
Opening hours this week:
Weds – Fri: 5-9.30pm
Saturday: 12-3pm 🥢 5-9.30pm
Sunday: 12-3pm 🥢 5-9pm
☏ 01865 499318
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