One Day Private Lhasa Tour of Enjoying Local Food

This trip is designed for you to enjoy authentic Tibetan food and beverage in Lhasa. Your tour guide will take you to visit some Tibetan restaurants and tea houses in Lhasa.  

In order to adapt to the extremely high altitude and harsh climate, Tibetan people have to eat food with high energy, which can keep them warm. Due to the high altitude, water boils at 90 degrees centigrade, making cooking with water difficult. Vegetables are also scarce, so Tibetan cuisine has become very special. The main ingredients are meat and dairy products. The food in Tibet shows a strong similarity to that in India and parts of China, but is uniquely Tibetan.

Duration: 1 Day (Starts from 9:00 am, finishes around 6:00 pm.). 

Tour Type: private tour. 

Attractions: Tea house, Tibetan restaurant.

Dining: Lunch.

Accommodation: Excluded.

Service: Hotel pick-up&drop-off service, private vehicle and Tibetan English-speaking tour guide.

Itinerary   Start from the hotel, visit the Tibetan teahouse (Guangming teahouse) in the morning, and Tibetan restaurant (Makye Ame) in the afternoon.

Pick up at the hotel, and then to the most famous teahouse in Lhasa, Guangming Teahouse. Take traditional sweet tea there and gossip with local people. In the noon, go to the most famous Tibetan restaurant, Makye Ame, and have traditional Tibetan food there for lunch, then relax and enjoy for the rest time there.

After the tour, we will drop you off at your hotel.

 Guangming Teahouse  located in old Lhasa city near Jorkhang monastery, is the most famous teahouse both for locals and tourists. It is a traditional Tibetan style house with traditional stools and desks. The tea sold not in bottles but in cups. It’s cheap for 0.5Yuan per cup, that is about 8cent per cup, and charge for each time. Here you can feel how Tibetan people spend the leisure time for drinking tea and so many news or rumors are been talked. Besides sweet tea, you can enjoy butter tea, Tibetan noodles, Tibetan bread, curry rice with yak meat ,tsanba(barley break)and other Tibetan snacks.

 Makye Ame is a very famous traditional Tibetan restaurant. The name Makye Ame is from the poem of 6th Dala lama, which is considered as the lover of the 6th Dalai lama. It is 3-story yellow building located in the southeast of Barkhor street, and has a history of hundreds years. At the time of 6th Dala lama, this building is the dating place for him and his lover, and now it’s a restaurant full of so many love stories. The famous dishes are like fried Tibetan lamb, yak meat, curry patato, Nynchi pork, Tibetan chicken and so on. 

 Tsampa: Tsampa is the staple food in Tibet. It is dough made with roasted barley flour and yak butter. There are several ways to prepare Tsampa. Tibetans put some ghee Yak butter in a bowl, pour some boiled water or tea into the bowl, add some roasted barley flour and then knead the mixture into dough balls and eat them. Tsampa served with buttered tea is salty, while Tsampa made into porridge is often sweet. Tibetan people eat Tsampa at every meal, every day. When traveling, they also take some along with them.

Tsampa

Meat: People living at higher altitudes generally consume more meat than those at lower regions where a variety of vegetables are available. The most commonly eaten meat in Tibet is beef and mutton. Beef and mutton contain a lot of protein which is helpful in coping with the cold. Many Tibetan often eat raw meat. Dried beef and mutton strips are also popular in Tibet. The dried meat is crisp and tastes good, and can be eaten raw. The cold temperature in winter has killed bacteria during the process of drying, making it very safe to eat. The dried meat can be stored for a long time and are useful for traveling long distances. Tibetans are also very fond of sausages. Blood sausages, meat sausages, flour sausages and liver sausages are very popular among Tibetans.

 

Dry Yak Meat

Beverages: In Tibet, there are several kinds of beverages. Butter tea, sweet tea, and Chang are the most common. Butter tea gives the drinker energy and so is especially suited to high altitudes. Beloved by nearly all Tibetans, they drink butter tea while eating Tsampa. As the buttered tea is quite salty, some people think it tastes more like soup broth than tea. Tibetan sweet tea is similar to English and Indian tea. The tea, along with milk and sugar, are boiled together, giving the tea a distinct flavor. Chang, a thick, white barley beer is sweet and low in alcohol content.

 

Tibetan Styple Vegetable Soup

Lhasa Snow Land Restaurant

Tashi I  Restaurant

The Summit Cafe