Tibetan food and restaurants

    Different products decide different foods; different environments decide different eat manner; different culture decide different dietetics. Accordingly, Tibetan foods are different between pasturing area and farming area.

    In pasturing area, besides Zanba (a kind of food that cooked glutinous rice pounded into paste) and cooked wheaten food, herdsmen always eat the red and white food. The red food means meat and the white food means milk. In summer, they eat white. In winter, they eat red. The well-known snacks in pasturing area are mutton eaten with the right hand, bake sheep intestines and air-dried meat.In farming area, highland barley, wheat and pease are the main food, as well as dairy products, yam, corn, buckwheat, soya, kidney bean and meat. And there are many wild animals, such as hare, deer, roe, boar and pheasant, which can supply the rich meat.

    The taste of Tibetan food is lite and mild. Most of dishes season only by salt, shallot and garlic and do not put into any other spicy flavoring. They represent a style that the culture of food return back to the origin.

    Ghee, tea, Zanba, beef and mutton are known as four treasures in Tibetan food, besides Barley wine and varied of milk products. Ghee is the extractant from the milk of flocks and herds. Ghee has high nutritive values and many eating ways, the main is made to ghee tea. Tibetan is one of the nationalities reveling in tea. Tea is processed to many varieties, the normal are ghee tea, sweat tea and clear tea. In the roof of the world, no matter how hungry and tired you are, if drinking a cup of hot tea, anyone will feel full of energetic. Especially, in winter that gale roaring and water dropping grown to glacial, a cup of tea will let you feel comfortable like backing to spring. If you are uneasy because of short of oxygen, the kindly Tibetan will advise you to drink some tea.

    Zanba is the basic food of Tibetan. They are made of highland barley, which to be dried, then fried and ground into powder. When eating, you should mix Zanba and ghee tea equably to eatable nubs. Air-dried meat is a kind of feature food in Tibet. Tibetan hang the pieces of meat in the shady and cool place at the end of the year, let them air dried naturally. On February or March, the next year, the meat pieces can be eaten. Barley wine is made of highland barley, which is the favorite of Tibetan, especially in Festival.

    There are many restaurants in Lhasa, Shigatse, and Tsetang. All restaurants of various classes are decorated and furnished in the traditional Tibetan style. Guests can enjoy delicious Tibetan dishes while admiring paintings and murals in the restaurants. Everyone will find their favorite and authentic Tibetan food on the menu, such flavors as sausages, barley wine, butter oil tea, beef and mutton eaten with the hands, yak tongue, steamed buns, zanba made from highland barley, pastries, sweet tea, butter tea, dried beef, and xiapuqing, or minced mutton and beef.