Songtsen Cafe – 1504 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M6R 1A4
Country: Tibet
Seating: Small indoor space
Must-try Dish: Dropa Katsa or Momos (for the less adventurous)
Dinner Guest: Suited Sebastien (AKA Momo King)

Mandrea Bike is excited to introduce Suited Sebastien to his first Eat the World TO experience. Suited Sebastien is the kind of dinner guest that we value as he blends perfectly into our eating adventure. Although Mandrea Bike’s dress code is typically pretty casual, Suited Sebastien doesn’t give a fuck and showed up in full suit, though I guess we can’t all be high powered Accountant’s.

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Songtsen Cafe is a restaurant tucked in Little Tibet on Queen Street in the heart of Parkdale. This small family run restaurant serves up Tibetan Home Food and might be one of our new favourite restaurants in the city. As we are always seeking to get the most authentic dining experience with a good mix of traditional foods, we kindly asked our server Tenzin Tsephel to bring out his favourite dishes, informing him that we have no allergies, we like everything and we’re hungry.

If you’re someone that’s willing to give exotic types of food a try, this is the place for you. From beef tripe (cow’s stomach) to blood sausage, they take foods that most people cringe at and transform them into mouth-watering dishes. Mandrea Bike and Suited Sebastien are VERY adventurous eaters, but blood sausage is something we all admitted to not particularly looking forward to. When the Gyuma (blood sausage) was placed in front of us, our initial reaction was that we would give it a try, but we weren’t expecting to love it. And were we ever wrong!

This is the perfect instance where having an open mind proves beneficial as the Gyuma was phenomenal, and gave us a new appreciation for blood sausage. The flavours added to the sausage were on point and helped reduce the often intense taste associated with blood sausage.

The Dropa Katsa (beef tripe/cow’s stomach) is another dish that most people would typically not order. Though this is another prime example of eating outside the box, this dish made our tongues tingle as our glands perspired simultaneously. This foreign sensation was good, despite the dish being at a spice level that even Mandrea Bike had to think twice about. 

Please note, if you are not as adventurous as us they do serve up a wide range of meals that do not include tripe or blood sausage.

We then got presented with Beef Gyathuk (Noodle soup), beef momo’s (Tibetan style dumplings) and Shabalay (deep-fried Tibetan beef patties). All three of these dishes were amazing and we were thankful to have Suited Sebastien join us, as the extra body allowed us to have a greater variety of dishes. Tenzin Tsephel finished us off with a Mango Lassi, which made for a great end to an amazing meal. Songtsen Cafe was so good that I have been starting to house hunt in the area so that I can become a regular patron of this incredible little family restaurant.

Rally up a group of friends (or family) and head down to Songsten Cafe for awesome home cooked Tibetan food.

Eat with you soon,

Mandrea Bike
(Mat & Andrea)