Bhutan day 4

The day starts with a delicious breakfast made by the mother of the family. It's beef fried rice made with red rice. I believe it wasn't dried beef because it wasn't very tough. It was accompanied by a homemade chili sauce and omelet. The omelet is just eggs with nothing else added. Somehow it was very tasty though it was more brown than usual. Probably the very fresh eggs and high heat make it very flavorful. I'm going to hike to Tiger's Nest and the lunch is at the cafeteria at the midway point. The food there is probably designed for tourists. That's enough of an excuse for me to eat more of this fried rice... I was really full when I finished breakfast. 

On the way to Tiger's Nest, I found wild marijuana. It was at the side of a major street. Nonetheless, consuming marijuana is illegal in Bhutan.

The Tiger's Nest was more challenging than I expected. I was expecting somewhere around 5 hours for the round trip but it ended up being almost 7 hours. Not only did the altitude make it more difficult, but it was a national holiday so the trail was packed with both tourists and locals. But I'm not sure whether I could have walked faster even if it wasn't so crowded. It was a very steep climb. We started from 2220m and the Tiger's Nest is located at 3100m. So, I climbed up 880m. No wonder it was so tough.... Anyway, it was well worth it.  

On the way back, we stopped by the cafeteria. My guess was right. The food was an Indian buffet. To make it worse, the flavor was very mediocre. My guide knows me well enough and got ema datsi from the kitchen just for me. This ema datsi was made with dried chili. It gives it a different flavor and texture. I did enjoy it as much as the version with fresh chili. The sauce was more watery but very flavorful.

I checked in at a very nice hotel by the Paro airport. Since this is the last night in Bhutan, the guide arranged a nice dinner at the hotel restaurant. The meal started with a corn soup. I'm sure the restaurant was trying to follow the western style.

Other dishes were served in a family style. Bitter melon. This is the second time to have bitter melon in Bhutan. It's a bit surprising because bitter melon is mostly consumed in sub tropical regions. But bitter melon originated in India. It probably came to Bhutan via India.

This is the first time I saw rice noodles in Bhutan. According to the guide, rice noodles are not very common in Bhutan despite the high consumption of rice. Very lightly seasoned.

On the first day, I had kewa datshi, which is potato and cheese. But this is a roasted potato. There is no sauce coating the potatoes. I didn't see/taste anything special so I'm guessing it's seasoned with just salt. However, it was very flavorful. 

This is pork stew with so much pork fat. I'm not sure if pork belly or shoulder. But this is the first meat dish with so much fat because most meat dishes are made with dried meat. If not dried, it is usually the leaner cuts of meat.

Of course, every meal has to have ema datsi. Unfortunately, this is the last ema datsi in Bhutan because I'm leaving tomorrow morning. I strongly believe ema datsi is a very unique dish. There are no Bhutanese restaurants in where I live. There are a few Himalayan restaurant but I've never seen ema datsi. I really hope I can see ema datsi in the US soon. 

Bhutanese cuisine is very unique because I don't see much relationship to the cuisine of other neighboring countries. Normally, there's more influence from surrounding countries but it seems Bhutan has established its own style. The most influential country for Bhutan should be India but I didn't see any dishes that resemble Indian curry. Not many spices are used in Bhutanese dishes. In fact, the only spice I saw in Bhutan was Szechuan pepper corn. Many dishes are as spicy as Indian foods but the way chili was used is completely different. Besides, I don't know other neighboring countries that use cheese in their dishes as much.

I did see quite a few Indian tourists. I strongly hope that Bhutanese can preserve their own culture for long time. 

Bhutan day 3

Because I kept telling the guide that I wanted local food (not dishes for tourists), he took me to a local noodle restaurant. It's located in a hidden corner of the building. It looked very "local"!! The restaurant specializes in momo (a popular dumpling, which is usually known better as a food from Nepal) and handmade soup noodles. The style of handmade noodle reminds me of the Western Chinese cuisine, such as Uyghur foods. Basically Bhutan is a rice-country and wheat flour is not as popular as a starch. Probably it originated from the western part of China via Tibet.

The sign to the restaurant

Inside the restaurant

Both steamed and fried momo with spicy sauce, which was spicier than one I had at a Nepalese restaurant in the US.

Their specialty soup noodle. I chose beef topping. The soup is the same no matter what topping you choose.


Bhutan is a Buddhist country. While most nations are not vegetarian, Bhutan doesn't even kill animals. The guide told me that all the animals for food are slaughtered in India and exported to Bhutan. Do Indians kill cows? The guide was guessing probably Muslims in India do the job. Very strange arrangement....

Tonight, I'm participating in a "farm stay". It's an inn run by a family. So, it's a kind of home-stay. It's located north of Paro (between Paro and Tiger's Nest). Like many other families in Bhutan, they have small farms for veggie, eggs and milk. 

I was welcomed with suja (butter tea) and milk tea (chai without any spices). Teas are usually served with roasted rice and roasted and pressed corn. Both are not very puffy but rather tough. Bhutanese are not into sweets so everything is only lightly sweetened.  

This farm-stay includes a cooking class taught by the mother of the family. I requested that I want to learn their national dish, ema datsi. Despite the great flavor of ema datsi, there was no secret. Simply cook fresh chili (it can be dried chili), onion (shallot) and tomato (optional) with two kinds of cheeses (cow and yak) in vegetable oil and water. The only seasoning is salt. The cow cheese is a little closer to feta in terms of texture. But there's no salt and it has a hint of tanginess. The yak cheese seems like a harder version of mozzarella (not the fresh mozzarella in water). I wasn't sure what cheese I can substitute to make ema datsi once I get back to the US. The guide said I can use Amul cheese from India to replace the Bhutanese cheese.  

The dinner included 4 dishes served with red rice and lettuce grown at their farm. The red rice is only slightly red. 

Tomorrow is the highlight of the trip, Tiger's Nest.  

Bhutan day 2

Surprisingly, I found my stomach was behaving much better than I expected, given the amount of chili I had yesterday. That's great, since it means that I can keep eating the authentic dishes during this trip. The hotel breakfast was all about Indian dishes. The majority of the tourists in Bhutan are Indian because they are exempted from visa (and minimum daily spend requirements) and can drive into Bhutan. Therefore, most of the guests at the hotel were Indian.

The food was tasty but unfortunately, nothing about Bhutan. After the breakfast, we headed for a short hike. I thought this would be a good preview for the visit to the Tiger's Nest (the most famous monastery in Bhutan) the day after tomorrow. The altitude of Thimphu is a little over 2300m. I need to get myself adjusted to the high altitude before the more serious hike. With many short rests due to shortness of breath, I managed to get to the monastery about midway up the very steep mountain. Tiger's Nest is supposed be twice as hard as this. I hope I'm ready....

After the hike, I had a picnic lunch that the guide picked up from a local restaurant. The dishes included ema datshi. Ema datshi has be in every meal in Bhutan! For some reason a pasta dish was included while everything else was authentic Bhutanese. It was a short pasta seasoned with something red, probably tomato ketchup. But it was almost tasteless. It seems this dish was included as a backup in case there are any "tourists" who misses non Bhutanese food. Totally the wrong idea for me. It is still nice of them to be considerate, though.

The most notable dish in this picnic lunch is fiddle head (lower left in the picture), a mountain vegetable. This vegetable is eaten a lot in Korea but usually precooked and brown. This dish is fresh green fiddle head sauteed. Unlike the brown version, it still had crunchy texture left and it was very tasty.

The guide arranged a dinner at very unique restaurant, which is adjacent to Simply Bhutan Museum. This museum is pretty small but it has interesting food related displays.

First, the host of the museum welcomed me with the local wine called Ara. They described it as close to Sake because it's made from rice. However, the alcohol % is much higher at more than 20%. Obviously it's house made and the environment for fermentation/aging is not well controlled. It was a bit off in flavor and it had some vinegary acidity. Still, a nice experience.

I guess the buckwheat noodle I had yesterday was indeed like spaetzle. The buckwheat dough is placed in the cell and pushed though the small holes at the bottom.

For the dinner, the owner of the travel agency (who I was communicating prior to the arrival in Bhutan) joined us. He even brought a gift, which surprised me. It's Bhutanese whiskey! I didn't tell him that I love whiskey, though. More than anything I didn't know Bhutan produces whiskey. According to him, there are 4 kinds of local whiskies. I can't wait to try it when I get home.

Here at the restaurant, finally I had a chance to try suja - butter tea. It's the tea made with butter with salt added. I had never had it and was curious. I was expecting something more buttery and salty but everything was mild. This is pretty approachable.

Two unique dishes at the dinner are buckwheat pancake and sauteed dried beef. (Ema datshi was of course included)

Buckwheat pancake

Stir fried dried beef (Dried beef is a traditional Bhutanese ingredient)

Now I'm starting to feel like chili is a vegetable....

Bhutan Day 1

Though Bhutan is not typically among the most popular countries for tourists to visit, it has always been on my bucket list. It's a small country with a population of less than 1 million and there are no traffic lights. Although I'm not totally sure how it's measured, Bhutan is known to be the world's happiest country. Their cuisine is heavily reliant on chili and chili is cooked as vegetable. That's enough to hook me on this country! Maybe eating lots of chili makes me happier....

In order to get to Bhutan, I had to find a travel agent first. Unless you are a citizen of specific country, such as India, you are required to obtain a visa and pay the daily tariff which includes meals, accommodation, local transportation and the guide. The daily charge is somewhere around $250 (depending on the number of travelers). It's not cheap at all but I thought it's not too bad because this is all inclusive (alcoholic beverages and souvenirs are excluded). First, I needed to fly to an airport that the Bhutanese airlines fly into, such as nearby cities like Delhi, Kolkata, or Dhaka. Although it's further away, I chose Bangkok because it was easier to find a better fare.

I arrived at Bangkok a little before midnight. The connection flight by Drukair to Paro, Bhutan is leaving at 5:00am. I could have stayed at the airport but I booked a hotel close to the airport just to take a shower. It was less than $30 and it's worth it! When I came back to the airport around 3:00am, there were not many things opened. My options were Subway and Starbucks. I found a somewhat local coffee shop but they didn't have coffee ready yet... To me, going to American chains, such as Starbucks while traveling is a defeat but I had no choice. Luckily I found something unique, called Thai tea bricks. It's a square bread piece filled with Thai tea flavored filling. Although I'm not a big fan of Thai tea, I gave it a shot. I didn't taste any Thai tea.... Just sweet creamy filling but it's a unique product to have in Thailand. 

The Paro airport that I landed at, was one of the smallest international airports I've ever seen. The airport is situated in a valley so that it's completely surrounded by steep mountains. With the buildings that are in the traditional form, it was beautiful.

When I got out of the airport, I was greeted by the guide and my Bhutan tour has started!

As I mentioned above, this is a country of chili (although it's not well know).  Because I've already mentioned my strong interest in food (by email), he stopped by at a street vendor who sells chili. One bag of ground chili (approximately 100g) was less than US$1.

This vendor is much bigger than the first one and sells more stuff, such as grains, fruits, etc. The hanging white things are yak's cheese.

The guide also took me to the farmer's market. It's very huge market with more than 100 vendors.

I took this picture from the second floor. Lots of fresh produce

This section is specialized in grains

For my very first meal in Bhutan, my guide took me to a restaurant called Orchid restaurant. The meal started with a drink. It seems milk tea is a more common way to drink tea here.

Look at the amazing dishes served on the table!

This is the dish I came to Bhutan for. It's a Bhutan's National dish called Ema Datshi, chili cooked with cheese. It literarally means ema (chili) and datshi (cheese). Datshi is made with either cow or yak milk. Yes, all the spicy green stuff is chili, not sweet bell pepper! It's pretty spicy but still pleasantly hot. Almost any meal includes ema datshi and each dish is slightly different. I'm looking forward to comparing the variations of this national dish throughout the trip. 

The next very unique dish is buckwheat noodle (?). It looks more like skinny spaetzle than noodles though.. It was prepared with very light seasonong. But it seems this is a specialty dish of this restaurant.

This is the additional dish that my guide requested for me because I specifically indicated that I didn't want any dishes that were toned down for tourists. This is the country of chili. If they reduced the heat, that's no longer the local dish. The ema datshi that I had earlier was pretty spicy but this is 3 times spicier. The red chili seems a spicier than green ones. It was very tasty! I left the half of the chili, though....

The dinner was at the hotel's restaurant. It's a hotel restaurant and buffet after all. So, I didn't expect much...


I started the meal with the local beer, called Druk 11000. It's a beer with 8% alcohol which is pretty strong, by Asian standards, for beer. It wasn't bad but I wish it was a bit chillier.

Because Bhutan has a strong relationship with India and Indian tourists are exempted from visa and minimum daily cost requirements, half of the buffet dishes were Indian. Although I was a little disappointed, I found that all the spiciness level was set for Indian tourists. Everything was spicy! In fact their ema datshi (lower left corner) was spicier than the one I had at lunch.

Let's see what happens tomorrow morning after I eat this much chili....