Murder, Momos and the Changing Face of Woolwich

Snaking our way to Woolwich on the serpentine DLR with it’s landscape of land-fill; car bonnet hillocks, wealds of white goods and ponds of spent cooking oil. Thatcher’s tram in the sky, starts to double as a theme park ride for JG Ballard fans. “Look little Johnny – there’s the dilapidated sugar refinery. And wow, look how close that evangelical miracle church is to the clinical waste recycling depot!” Getting off ‘Dystopia - the ride’ at King George V on Woolwich’s northern shore, Maggie’s memorial monorail stands in stark contrast to the blight that befell the Woolwich waterfront as the Iron Lady ‘managed’ or ‘exacerbated’ London’s industrial decline. Turning hard left on Pier Road, the free ferry winds the clock back further still, to an era of municipal works and radical trade-unionism. Aboard the lower decks of the good ship Ernest Bevin, passed the time-warped smoking compartments and out onto the bow, it’s easy to imagine dock workers tapping out their pipe tobacco into the river and doffing a cap to the captain before setting foot on Woolwich’s southern bank.

Once ashore, it’s quick to see and smell what Woolwich has to offer the food explorer. Wafts of jerk smoke siren you towards the outdoor market near the DLR terminus, where Caribbean stalls jostle for space with the sock, watch battery and top-up peddlers. Nearby, African restaurants and particularly Nigerian cafes seem to be doing a roaring trade with the promise of chilled supermalt, oxtail, fufu and a big football clash on the box. But the biggest draw is the blossoming of Nepalese canteens that have rooted here as a result of the Gurkha regiment’s association with the Royal Artillery barracks on the other side of the South Circular.

According to locals, even 50 years ago, some Nepalese ingredients were available in a Powis Street mini-market a few doors down from the UK’s first McDonald’s. Among them, tsampa flour, used as a supplement to bulk out sugary tea and create a sort of Himalayan Horlicks. It was also one of the few places outside Nepal where homesick Gurkhas could chomp on ‘chhurpi’ (a hard preserved yaks cheese) or buy aamli fruit, an integral component in traditional pickles. All of which must’ve jarred thrillingly next to the newly-installed Golden Arches.

Indeed Nepalis like Bangladeshis have been behind some of the best Indian food cooked in the UK for decades, but haven’t had the opportunity or perhaps the chutzpah to challenge the CTM-crazed Brits with their native nosh. Until now. The crossover could be their national staple and fast food favourite – the momo. A large steamed dumpling filled with minced chicken or mutton, akin to xiaolongbao, but with the relevant broth and a traditional chutney or dipping gravy, which bares an uncanny resemblance to a pokey gazpacho, served on the side. Gurkha Café, secreted in the gloom of the Public Market on Plumstead Road offer good examples. Crimped differently according to their filling and coming in clutches of 6, their silky skin bellies the fiery filling, flecked with ground timur, a cousin of the hot and numbing Sichuan pepper, but more floral thanks to the higher content of linalool.