The Tibetan Memories van at a festival with its serving window open and awning out, gold scrollwork along the roofline, chalk menu boards inside and a queue of people being served

Frome, Somerset

Tibetan food,
cooked from scratch

Momos, curries and dahl from Namdi's kitchen, served out of a blue and gold van. All of it vegan.

See the menuBook the van

Festivals, markets, weddings and private events. Namdi drives the van all over the country. Five star food hygiene rating, NCASS members, fully insured.

“Not wanting to profit from others’ suffering.”

Namdi, on why everything the van serves is vegan. The Buddhism explains the food. It isn’t the thing being sold.

Find us

Where we will be

Confirmed dates are published on our own public calendar, and they appear here as soon as they are booked.

If none are showing, Instagram and TikTok always carry the next one, and the calendar itself opens in a new tab.

Through the season we are out at festivals and markets all over the country. Confirmed dates go into the calendar on this page as they are booked, and Instagram and TikTok are where we post which event is next.

You might remember us from the Good Heart cafe in the middle of Frome. We're not there any more, but Frome is still home and we are never far from it.

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What people said

“The smell of the food was what drew me in. Out of all the food I ate, this was the only food that didn’t leave me feeling sluggish afterwards. I went back for more.”

themichellehanson · All About Love Festival

“We came for lunch for my daughter’s 14th birthday. It was absolutely delicious and our host and chef was utterly lovely with a great sense of humour. We all agreed that it was one of our best experiences of eating out. Thank you.”

Rebecca, Grace, Joe, Johnny & Mark

“We got the momos, which were awesome, particularly with chilli oil. Everything had so much flavour.”

383ninav

“Amazing food! Thank you for creating beautiful food that is healthy, delicious and enjoyed by both adults and children!”

“One of the best I’ve ever had. I could quite happily eat this food all day, every day!”

Rachy

“That was a delicious dinner,” from a three year old who “ate cabbage without even realising”

Alice

“The momos are amazing! We wish there was a place like this in London!”

“The momos are divine!”

Tessa & Jenny

“Best dahl in town”

“Food made with love. Wonderful.”

Helen

“The food is lovely, simple, honest”

“Amazing value”

Dan & Kelly

“The food was tasty and a good portion size.”

Here.To.Travel_Jade · Vegan Camp Out

“Wonderful, refreshing & different food – we’ll come back!”

Dave & Ben

Namdi in an orange apron handing a box of curry across the counter to a smiling customer at a festival
Four large steel pots of chickpea, lentil and vegetable curry on gas burners at a market pitch
A wide steel pan of chickpea and spinach curry cooking in bright sun on the pitch

Book us

Festivals, weddings, birthdays, or your freezer

We're a mobile catering family and we travel. Festivals and markets through the season, private events whenever the date is free.

Festivals and markets

We have traded at Vegan Camp Out and All About Love, among others. If you run an event, or you know one that would suit us, tell us about it.

Inform us about a festival or event

Weddings and private events

Weddings, birthdays and parties, anywhere in the country the van can reach. The curries are cooked on site, exactly as they are at any festival pitch.

Enquire about a wedding or private event

What we need on site

A 6m x 2.5m pitch for the van and a water supply on site. No power hook-up, no gazebos and no crew camping needed.

Fill up your freezer

We also make meals to take home and freeze. Handy if you've got a houseful coming, or you just want good food in the house.

For event organisers

5 star hygiene rating

Awarded by the local authority. All food is prepared under five star conditions.

NCASS members

Up to date insurance, inspection documents and risk assessments, ready to send to any event organiser who asks.

Registered locally

Registered with the local authority's environmental health team, and happy to send the paperwork over before you book.

Made from scratch

Dishes and spiced tea are made from scratch, including hand pulled Tibetan noodle soup. Vegetables often come from family and friends' allotments.

Enquire

A date, rough numbers and where you are is enough to start. We'll come back to you with what we can do.

Summer weekends go first, so the earlier you ask the better. But send the date whenever you have it and we'll tell you straight away whether we're free.

Or write to us yourself at tibetanmemories@gmail.com. Email is best, as we can't always answer the phone (07986 726147).

What is it for?

Only your name and email are needed. The rest helps us answer in one go.

We'll reply by email. What happens to what you send is in the privacy notice.

Before you ask

Questions people often ask

Yes. Everything on the Tibetan Memories board is vegan. Namdi cooks this way because of what he was taught in his monastery in Tibet, so it isn't a seasonal decision. If anything ever falls outside that it would be vegetarian, never meat.

A momo is a Tibetan dumpling. Ours are filled with sweetheart cabbage and spring onion, steamed first and then pan-fried until golden. They are Namdi's speciality and the thing he learnt to make first, at home and later in his monastery.

We are out at festivals and markets all over the country through the season. Confirmed dates go into our calendar as soon as they are booked, and Instagram and TikTok are where we post which event is next. You might remember us from the Good Heart cafe in Frome. We're not there any more, so the van is where to find us.

Yes. Alongside the events we make meals to take home and freeze. It's the same food we serve from the van, cooked from scratch. Use the enquiry form or email us, and say roughly how much you want and when you need it by.

Namdi, every time. He learnt this food at home in Kham and in his monastery, and he still makes every batch himself rather than handing it to a crew. His wife Shangchub Drolma, known as Elissa, runs everything behind the scenes.

Crushed spices, brewed from scratch on the pitch. It's what people come back for when the weather turns.

The cook

Namdi learnt this food at home, and in a monastery

He was born in Riwoche, in Kham, in 1976. Life was hard, and he and his brothers and sisters all worked from a young age. There are about twelve of them, he thinks, though he can't say exactly. He left the Tibetan plateau at twenty.

He made his way to Belgium by way of Nepal and India, and spent years working split shifts, six days a week, in a Michelin recommended Italian restaurant in Antwerp. He never learnt Flemish or French. He does know a good few insults in Sardinian.

A young Namdi in red monk's robes, in an old family photograph
Namdi as a young monk.
Namdi in a black polo shirt making an espresso behind a restaurant bar, a bottle of San Pellegrino in the foreground
At work in Antwerp, 2012.
Namdi smiling in a bright orange apron, holding a plate of three momos
Namdi today.
Namdi stirring a large steaming pot of curry with a long wooden ladle
The curries are cooked in the same place they are served.

Some Tibetan staples don't travel well. Tsampa, roasted barley, is a hard sell to anyone who didn't grow up on it. So he kept what works and built the rest around fresh green vegetables, which the plateau never had much of and the West has in abundance. Produce often comes from family and friends' allotments.

A craft and a meditation.

That's how he describes making torma, the coloured offerings built from edible ingredients that he learnt in his monastery. The same attention goes into a tray of momos. He sometimes brings torma to the stall to show people. They're never for sale.

The food is vegan because of what he was taught there, not because of a trend. In his words, the family would rather not profit from others' suffering.

A monk in maroon robes making a coloured sand mandala on a board while two children watch
Torma and sand mandala work, from our own photographs.
Hands tying strings of blue, white, red, green and yellow prayer flags to a tree beside the stall
Prayer flags go up wherever we pitch.
Snow-covered mountains and valleys of the Tibetan plateau seen from the air
Kham, from our own photographs.
The Tibetan Vegan Food roundel from the side of the van

Get in touch

Email, ring or follow along

tibetanmemories@gmail.com

Email is best, as we can't always answer the phone. If you do need to ring: 07986 726147

Send us an enquiry

Based in Frome, Somerset

tibetanmemories.co.uk · Instagram @tibetanmemories · TikTok @tibetan.memories · Facebook @tibetanflavours · X @MemoriesTibetan

Privacy

Privacy

This explains what happens to information about you when you visit this site or get in touch. It is written to be read, not to cover us.

Who is responsible

The data controller is Tibetan Memories Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, number 13660313, based in Frome, Somerset. You can reach us at tibetanmemories@gmail.com or on 07986 726147.

Cookies, only if you say yes

When you first visit, a panel at the foot of the screen asks whether we may use Google Analytics. Until you press Accept, nothing from Google Analytics loads and no cookies are set.

If you accept, Google Analytics sets two cookies, _ga and _ga_09XLR18Z2H, which last up to two years. They let it tell a returning visitor from a new one.

Your answer, yes or no, is kept in your browser's storage for six months so we do not ask on every visit; after that we ask again. Keeping it is what lets the site respect your choice, so it needs no consent of its own. Nothing else is stored on your device: no advertising tags, no tracking pixels.

You can change your mind at any time with Cookie settings at the foot of the page. If you withdraw, Google Analytics stops and its two cookies are deleted.

What is collected, and why

  • Visits to this page, if you accept. Google Analytics counts visits and which buttons people press, such as the phone number, the email address or sending the enquiry form. We see totals, not people, and Google states that Google Analytics does not store IP addresses. The reports sit in an account run by franco.solutions, who built this site and look after it for us. The lawful basis is your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
  • The calendar of dates. The dates on this page come from our public Google Calendar. Loading it means Google receives your IP address and basic details about your browser.
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  • Hosting. The site is hosted on GitHub Pages, and like any web host GitHub's servers see the IP address of everyone who asks for a page.
  • Enquiries, by form, email or phone. If you send the enquiry form, write or ring about a booking we keep what you send: your name, how to reach you, the date, the place, and whatever you tell us about your event. We use it to answer you and to run the booking. The lawful basis is taking steps at your request before entering into a contract, and afterwards our legitimate interest in keeping a record of work we have done. The form is delivered to our email by Web3Forms, a form service, which also keeps a copy of each message on its own servers.

What we do not do

The enquiry form only sends us your message. There is no account to create, no payment taken on this site, no newsletter, no advertising and no profiling. We do not build a picture of you, we do not make automated decisions about you, and we do not sell or share anyone's details for anyone else's purposes. We do not send marketing emails or texts; if that ever changed we would ask you first, as the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 require.

Who else sees it

Google, for the calendar, our email (a Gmail account) and, only if you accept, the analytics; Web3Forms, which delivers the enquiry form to that email; franco.solutions, who look after the site and read the analytics reports; and GitHub, for the hosting. Nobody else, unless we are required by law to hand something over.

Where it goes

Google and GitHub are United States companies, and Web3Forms keeps its copies of form messages with Amazon Web Services, so your information may be handled outside the United Kingdom. Google and GitHub state that they use the safeguards UK data protection law requires for those transfers, and Web3Forms describes its service as GDPR compliant.

How long it is kept

Analytics reports are counts, not records about individuals. Google Analytics deletes the underlying visit data after the period set in the account, at most 14 months. Enquiry emails, including those sent with the form, are kept in our Gmail account for three years after the event, then deleted. Web3Forms deletes its own copy of a form message after at most three years.

Your rights

Under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 you can ask us for a copy of what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, ask us to limit what we do with it, object to us using it, and in some cases ask for a copy in a portable form. Email us and we will deal with it. We do not charge for this, and we will answer within a month.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled it you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK's data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk. We would much rather you told us first, so we can put it right.

Changes

Updated 4 November 2026. If this notice changes, that date changes with it.