Jampa Deleg has traveled far in both distance and experience from Potala, a fortress in his hometown of Lhasa, Tibet, to Potala, a new restaurant at 574 Main St. in Middletown.
Once a Buddhist monk, Deleg left Lhasa, the former winter palace of the Dalai Lama, when he was in middle school, with thousands of other Tibetans, when the oppression of the Chinese government became too much to bear, he said.
“I liked being a monk, but it is very hard,” he said. In the U.S., he worked as a chauffeur, and was driving a limo on the Brooklyn Bridge when the plane hit the first tower on Sept. 11, 2001. He was later a sushi chef in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He sold jewelry made from Tibetan coral and at one time was a card dealer at Foxwoods. “When people lost, I would see their faces. They were so sad. I didn’t like that job,” he said.
A few months ago, when he heard that Tibetan Kitchen was leaving its Middletown location to relocate, his cooking career and his Tibetan heritage merged. He and co-owners Tsering Sangmo and Dawa Dolma, all of Tibetan heritage, seized the opportunity and opened Potala on July 25.
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