Phayul
“My favorite combination is the veggie Momos to start and then shak trak and bok choi on the side.”
“One dollar can give you a nice warm cup of yak butter tea, lightly salted tea with yak butter (has a nice umami to it).”
“The beef shak trak is a nice balance of veggies, tender meat, and garlic and beef thenthuk will hit the spot if you are looking for noodle soup.”
Phayul
Take-out: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$ Price range Under $10
8 reviews
Rate and write a review Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
This was excellent and so cheap.
The beef momos are the best thing on the menu. Sparingly use the orange sauce to add an excellent spicy flavor.
If you like beef then order the shaktrak
The soup dumplings were also very good.
The handmade noodle soup was pretty good, the noodles were nicely made but the best part were the greens, which actually led us to order bok choy (seasonal vegetable)
The tofu was also good, but we mainly got that for my vegetarian friend.
That butter tea is not like other tea. It's more like a buttery salty broth. Would have been better after dinner and not in the middle of summer
Notably, this place is located above a hair salon, quite small but service was good. And prices were amazingly reasonable
Came here with high expectations from all the raving yelp reviews (which rarely disappoint) but sadly we found Phayal pretty disappointing. Momo's are basically the Himalayan/Nepalese version of Chinese dumplings but not as juicy, tender or flavorful. We had the beef momos and they were just okay. The Thenthunk or hand pulled noodles were too soft and the broth was quite bland. The shak trak was a dish of fried beef and red onions in a mild spicy sauce. It was good but not anything that commands my return and smaller than we were expecting. The butter tea is interesting as I've never had tea that was buttery and salty. I would say that out of everything the butter tea is the must-try item here.
If you're not careful you might just walk right past Phayul as it is a second floor walk up (so not wheel chair/extremely elderly friendly) and the awning right above the door is of a salon.
The place is small so expect to wait if you come during meal times.
This was my first experience with Tibetan/Himalayan food, and I'm glad that it was at a place that felt so authentic and homey. That being said, I did enjoy the food, but I wasn't *too* impressed.
This restaurant is easy to miss and it looks a bit sketchy since it's located at the top of some darkly-lot stairs next to a threading place. It's small inside and the decor isn't amazing, but I do think their dishes give you a real taste of Tibet.
What we had…
– Beef Momos: good for a quick snack. They're similar to Chinese dumplings, with meat inside and a thick dumpling wrapper.
– Beef Shak Tak & Beef Tongue Shak Tak: or at least I believe they were both the same dish, because they were very similar. They had good flavors, and you can tell them how mild or spicy that you want it. Portion size was relatively small, but the prices are very affordable.
– Mango Lassi: my first experience with this l, and I did like! Subtle mango flavor, and very creamy
Ranajoy recommended this place, since we were all about trying some new cuisine on this trip to the city. I'd never had Himalayan/Tibetan food before. Ooh boy, good choice!
Super small restaurant space above a street store. We were surprised how crowded this joint was for 3pm on a Monday. Luckily, we were able to get a table relatively quickly.
It took awhile to get our food – everything is made to order! I picked an appetizer of Tsak Sha Dang Laphing – I don't like anything with a similar texture to Jello. Ranajoy and Stephen loved it, so they scarfed it down. I ate some of Stephen's Thenthuk with beef. After trying a spoonful, I couldn't put it down. It was a fantastic trade-off! Wide, good-textured noodles. Spinach (?) leaves and sliced meatBeef noodle soup for the soul!
Main dish: Tsak Sha Dang Ka Sha Ngoe Ma – Beef with Mushrooms. The lady was so nice and more than willing to add green pepper to the dish. So many thick mushroom slices – cloud nine! The beef was also thin and tender.
I was stoked to try the Tibetan Tea. Yep. Tea flavored with salt and butter, as opposed to the first thought of milk and sugar. It was a wonderful creamy butter taste. Faint hints of the salt – just the right amount. I'm glad I got the chance to partake in true Tibetan culture!!
Phayul gets stars for its feels; you can almost think you were in some local joint in Tibet after you go up some stairs to find it on the second floor. Dark chairs and tables are on one side, while the cooks make your meal behind the counter on the other. Unfortunately, the momos I had here confirms my suspicion that when trying cuisines that seem to be heavy on the meat dishes, vegetarian choices are not always the best. I wanted a quick snack and was disappointed by my momo, which didn't reflect the raves from the Yelp reviews. The meat eaters I noticed had plates of steaming, white skinned fresh looking momos that looked fresh and delicious. My vegetable momos came out warm, with the thick skin that looked like it had been sitting around and re-steamed, and not too successfully. The gathered portion of the skin chewy and hard inside, at the gathered dough parts like pasta that hadn't been cooked to the core, and the entire wrap had a slight greyish tinge, like buns that had been made in advance. The momo inside was a potato mix, with some pieces of spinach and shavings of carrot. It reminded me of samosas, but without the curry, and wasn't steaming hot either. With the mix of vinegar(you can request it), and chili and pepper sauces and soy, it was okay, but not an experience I'd try again.
To be fair to Phayul, everyone else seemed to be enjoying their dishes, including the hot, steaming momos they received. They seemed to be locals who knew their cuisine. I just think the vegetable momo isn't a frequently requested dish, and probably is something they make well in advance and refrigerate, to steam when needed. The momos are filling. I had intended to snack and to go over to Resobox to eat some sushi and ramen but found out I was full. Service here is affable.
This place came highly recommended by a friend who was dying to show me her favorite eats at this Tibetan place on the second floor. While some of this might be discounted by the fact that I had a cold, I was sadly disappointed by what we ordered.
The best dish we got was definitely the chele katsa – fried spicy beef tongue, sauteed with peppers and onions. The texture of the tongue is spot on and this dish is sinus clearing spicy. Paired with the lhasa tingmo, very similar to Chinese mantou but a little denser, this makes for an excellent meal.
The momos are aite – I've never met a dumpling I didn't like, and these were juicy enough but I thought the beef was a little tough and not as flavorful as other momos I've had, and where was the achar that comes with the momos?! Other tables had what looked like hot sauce but we weren't lucky enough to get our hands on some.
Finally, the Tibetan yak cheese soup which I've had fantasies about was the real disappointment. I wanted funk and barnyard smells; instead the soup was bland, thick and gooey – too reminiscent of paste to finish.
A tip for the adventurers trying to find this place – it's on the second floor right by a Himalayan eyebrow threading shop. Mild ascent, with low risk of altitude sickness.
Quarterly I lead a group of friends to different areas of the city, using our expanded numbers to eat through part of one of New York's amazing food enclaves. Recently we came to Jackson Heights, specifically to look into the growing numbers of Nepalese and Tibetan restaurants in the area.
Phayul was our first stop, and as a way of showing the difference between the filament lamps and exposed brick of our neighborhood eateries in Brooklyn and Manhattan, it was perfect. To get to the restaurant you pass a salon and navigate a narrow twisting staircase. A colorful pieces of drapery separates the restaurant from the public part of the building, but the lack of waiting area meant that my party spilled halfway down the stairs.
We were going elsewhere for momo, so I took advantage of the large menu at Phayul to try some dishes not always available at Tibetan restaurants. We ate shoo chaste and shook sit sit ngoe ma, both variations and potatoes and peppers with a strong spice attached. We had laphing, cold mung bean noodles related to dishes that come from Northeast China. We also sampled a piece of tingmo, the fluffy Tibetan bread served with proteins.
By the end of the meal, I was dealing with requests for butter tea. Despite my protestations that butter tea is awful and very much lives up to its odious reputation, a pot was ordered. Perhaps it was the ambience or the fact that true yak butter isn't available in Queens, but some members of my party actually seemed to enjoy it.
I've pretty much lived my whole life in Woodside/Jackson Heights and have always neglected to try traditional Tibetan food.
Til I finally got recommendations to come HERE by my Tibetan co-workers and to try tradition Tibetan style dumplings.. MOMOS!
After trying their steamed beef momos, I think I came back 3-4 times in 2 weeks for them. One of the times I actually sat in with my girlfriend for dinner!
Beef Momos ($6/8) if you've ever had soup dumplings, this is sort of like it. The meat is a little tough and the dough is a little thicker but not in an unpleasant way. The little soup that it spews after the first bite is just packed with flavor! God I wish it had more soup in it!
Spicy Beef Tongue ($9)
This dish was solid. I love Mexican style beef tongue so this wasn't that much different. I do wish the pieces of tongue were thicker and more tender. Then it would probably be a go-to dish!
Service is good! It was the same woman working all 4 times I went there lol. When we did dine in, service was still awesome, despite her having to handle bussing and waiting 10 tables and working the cash register.