In winter, momos are salvation: hot dumplings with swirled pleats, fresh from the steamer, arriving in a cloudy rush of ascending souls.

To eat them outdoors in winter, shivering, with numb, fumbling fingers, is even more of a wonder. At the Amdo Kitchen food truck in Jackson Heights, Queens, momos come huddled unceremoniously, eight for $5 on a disposable plate; bow your head over them and the steam kisses your face.

Thubten Amchok, the owner and chef, grew up in the Amdo region of Tibet and fled to Nepal and then India before settling in the U.S. in 1995. A former monk, he started selling momos from a pushcart six years ago. Now his truck — emblazoned with Tibetan and American flags, snow lions alongside stars and stripes — rolls out daily, weather permitting. (Snowdrifts from the recent storm piled up so high, he couldn’t park on the street for two weeks.)