Foodie Scientist: 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.