Restaurants are relatively scarce and most tourists eat in their hotels where the chefs temper the spicy Bhutanese dishes to suit Western tastes.
Things to know: Meals are often buffet-style and mostly vegetarian. Recent restrictions on meat-eating have lapsed ever so slightly and meat is surprisingly easy to come by. Meat and fish are now imported from nearby India, and Nepali Hindus living in Bhutan are licensed to slaughter animals.
National specialties: • Cheese is a very popular ingredient in dishes and the most popular cheeses are
datse (cow’s milk
cheese), sometimes served in a dish with red chillies (
emadatse), and yak cheese.
• Rice is ubiquitous, sometimes flavored with saffron, apart from in central Bhuatan where the altitude makes rice cultivation difficult. Buckwheat is the staple here.
• The country is replete with apple orchards, rice paddies and asparagus, which grows freely in the countryside.
• There are over 400 varieties of mushroom including orchid mushrooms.
National drinks: • The most popular drink is
souza (Bhutanese tea).
•
Ara (a spirit distilled from rice, wheat or corn).
Tipping: Not widely practiced.
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