Tibetan restaurants in Tibetan areas are all the same, and most of them only eat a few kinds of food with no more than ten fingers. As for the taste, unless you have my strong willpower of "the Red Army is not afraid of expedition" and can walk out of the restaurant with a smile after eating three meals, you can join me in the Long March. See "Q 17"
A Tibetan meal.
Andono Zeng Head Office is located in the center of Lhasa, not far from Barkhor Street of Jokhang Temple. Compared with ordinary Tibetan restaurants, the facade of Andono is much more gorgeous, with dragons and phoenixes carved on the doors and signs written in Tibetan, English and Chinese. There are three domains in Tibetan areas, namely, "legal domain defending Tibet, Ma domain Amdo, and human domain Kangba". Amdo is located in the northeast of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, with Qinghai as the core area. Therefore, the name of "Amdo Ruozeng" is similar to "Qinghai Hotel". I guess so. I don't understand what Nozeng means.
This shop is quite large, with boxes on the second floor and Tibetan hot pot on the third floor. The lobby on the first floor is magnificent, with long benches and tables in Tibetan restaurant style, heavy solid wood and exquisite workmanship. The waiters are all young boys and girls, with light steps and gentle attitude, which is much better than ordinary Tibetan restaurants.
Xiao Liu is quite familiar with this place, so he ordered some special dishes at home. I don't remember how much it cost to check out later, but it was quite affordable. Tibetan restaurants are not cheating.
Tableware is a western knife and fork. First, cover the cake with Amdo yak, put it in a thick pot, heat it below, put cooked potatoes, onions and oiled beef slices at the bottom, and cover it with a layer of cake. After it was served, the boy chopped the bread with a knife and fork and stirred it on the spot.
This dish tastes good, the beef is tender, much better than the yak meat I used to eat, the potatoes are delicious, and the bread is soft and fragrant after absorbing the soup. But I think it's a modern dish, just like the three-sauce stew pot that was once very popular in the mainland.
The other is ghee ginseng fruit that I have never seen before. At first I thought it was chickpea, but later I thought it was a very small rhizome, just like a miniature version of sweet potato. Later, I searched the Internet, only to know that this is Potentilla anserina, a herb growing on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and ginseng fruit is the rhizome of Potentilla anserina. Because it looks like a gourd, it is associated with the name of ginseng fruit. It turns out that ginseng fruit is so pocket-sized, so it is no wonder that Pig Bajie swallowed it in one gulp and didn't know what it tasted like.
We couldn't learn the eight precepts, so we put them in our mouths carefully and chewed them carefully. I don't know, it's pink and slightly sweet, that's all. Interestingly, crispy ginseng fruit is served with a plate of fried noodles, which is the most traditional staple food in Tibet, and the flour ground from highland barley-Ciba. When eating, sprinkle the rice cake on the dish and stir it.
I didn't understand this way of eating at that time. Later, as I continued to travel in the hinterland of Tibetan areas, I wanted to know the origin of this dish. Take a bowl of Zanba (fried noodles), add a piece of ghee, sprinkle some so-called ginseng fruit, reach in and knead it into a ball. This is how to eat Zanba. In front of me, this plate of crispy ginseng fruit is sprinkled with rice cake, which is like mixing sugar. It is like pouring two or two noodles into half a catty of scallion oil to make scallion noodles. The priority is completely reversed.
And tomato beef sauce. I was quite nervous when I ordered this dish. I thought it was the most traditional Tibetan raw beef sauce. It is said that it is mashed with fresh beef and mixed with Chili powder, ginger and garlic. People who have never touched it are in danger of diarrhea. The result was tomato beef soup. Although it tastes good, it also makes me a little disappointed.
The vegetable is sesame spinach. Looking at this green spinach, I am surprised. In ordinary Tibetan restaurants, vegetables have never been fried, and it is impossible to grow green leafy vegetables on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Seeing me, I was puzzled. The young man who served vegetables insisted that spinach originated in Lhasa. Can it be said that spinach produces plateau resistance genes? Or is the vegetable greenhouse technology in Lhasa already so strong?
A pot of butter tea, of course. It's my favorite Tibetan drink. The milk tea that tourists prefer is not a Tibetan tradition at all. It obviously spread from Britain to India, and then to Hongkong, Taiwan Province Province and Tibet. The popularity of milk tea in mainland China is influenced by the culture of Hong Kong and Taiwan.
I had a very satisfying meal in Amdo, and several dishes tasted really good. It is also difficult to live an ascetic life for many days. While eating, I was thinking, are these three dishes and one soup traditional Tibetan meals? It must be awakened that it is doubtful that you can eat "local" dishes that suit your taste in a distant land.
Except sesame spinach, other dishes have Tibetan regional style in tableware, style and taste, but I don't think it is very traditional. Buttered ginseng fruit is China's version of Tibetan food, and beef covered cakes and beef soup are more like western food styles. In fact, when you walk into a restaurant, you can expect it. Looking up, except for the waiters, all the people in the hall are Han people. Andono Zeng is a tourist restaurant, and the consumer group is not Tibetans in Lhasa.
So after eating this meal, I realized what high-end Tibetan food is. For example, a European tourist came to China and ate popular fast food such as Lamian Noodles and McDonald's in Lanzhou every day. One day, he walked into a three-sauce stew pot shop, where onions, potatoes, beef, chicken wings, prawns and tomatoes were all delicious. How would he evaluate this so-called high-end Chinese food? Anyone who knows how to cook should know that stew with three sauces is a new dish that has only appeared in recent years. In fact, it is a typical European stew, which uses soy sauce, soy sauce and oyster sauce from China instead of European sauces. Excuse me, is this three-sauce stew pot with vest high-grade Chinese food or western food?
After traveling in Tibet for more than two months, I step into Tibetan restaurants almost every day and still don't know what high-end Tibetan food is. Although most Tibetans don't pay attention to eating and drinking, there must be high-end Tibetan food. In the past, the nobles in Tibet lived a luxurious life. A hundred years ago, they drank red wine with knives and forks. Maybe next time I go to Tibet, this confusion will be solved.
Wandering around Lhasa, I walked into a farmer's market. The photo below is said to have been taken in any city in the mainland, and no one will ask questions. Well, Nuo Nuo's local spinach may grow here, right?
With the development of economy and the blending of nationalities, will high-end and traditional Tibetan food be melted by Sichuan cuisine?
After so many years of travel, I have been looking for local traditional diet. In fact, even in the mainland, how many places can you meet high-end and traditional Chinese food? Catering always keeps pace with the times, and there is no need to stick to tradition, just like no one will wear a high-end robe and jacket again, unless it is to make money for acting.