Other dishes to eatOther dishes to eat when you are in Bhutan when you are in Bhutan 

Kewa datshi

Kewa is potato, so kewa datshi is potatoes and Bhutanese cheese. It surprised me by how similar kewa datshi is to a dish similar to scalloped potatoes.

The potatoes are typically sliced into thin pieces, then sautéed down with cheese and lots of butter. Sometimes cooks will toss in a few chilies or tomatoes, but usually, this is a Bhutanese dish that’s pretty mild, but just focuses on potatoes and cheese.

Shamu datshi

A third staple cheese dish in Bhutanese food is shamu datshi, cheese with mushrooms.

Being a chili addict, ema datshi is my personal favorite variation of a Bhutanese veggie cheese dish, but shamu datshi was a close second. The mushrooms, which can be any variety of local Bhutanese Himalayan mushroom, are again, cooked into a cheesy saucy stew along with butter.

Just like with all the other variations of Bhutanese datshi, you eat shamu datshi along with rice.

Shakam ema datshi

If you haven’t already noticed, there’s just about no way you can go to Bhutan and eat Bhutanese food without eating lots of cheese. Datshi will probably one of the first words you learn in Dzongkha.

Shakam is Bhutanese dried beef, which is among the most famous of meats. The beef is dried and preserved so it tastes similar to beef jerky, but thicker, and not quite completely dehydrated.

For shakam datshi, dried beef is cut into bite sized pieces and simmered with cheese and butter. What a combo this is.

Shakam paa

Shakam paa is a wonderful Bhutanese food of dried beef cooked with dried chilies and sometimes slices of radish.

During my month staying in Bhutan, shakam paa quickly became one of my favorite protein dishes of choice. Again, the beef is slightly chewy from being dried and preserved, and it’s combined with lots of dry chilies.

One thing I loved about Bhutanese cooking is how the chilies are just tossed in whole — don’t worry about slicing things up and making them look pretty — you get the whole chilies in Bhutan, amazing.

Shakam shukam datshi

Shakam shukam datshi is a rather rare dish that you won’t find at too many restaurants in Bhutan, but when I had it for the first time at a local restaurant in Thimphu, I immediately fell in love with the combination and especially with the unique white chilies.

You probably recognize shakam and datshi already — chilies and cheese — but shukam are Bhutanese dried white chilies. So this Bhutanese dish includes cuts of dried beef cooked with cheese and white chilies. The white chilies ad an incredible sour spice which is quite unique.

Phaksha paa

Along with beef and yak, pork is also widely loved throughout Bhutan, perhaps the most of all meats.

For phaksha paa, slices of pork are stir fried with whole red dry chilies and sometimes some mountain vegetables as well. The result is another staple Bhutanese dish that goes great with rice and mixed in with some datshi dishes.

Sikam paa

Do you love bacon? Sikam paa is like bacon on the next level, and from my experience, this is a dish that many Bhutanese love with passion.

You’ll see strands of half transparent pork belly hanging in the sun to dry — that’s sikam. The pork, which has quite an impressive ratio of fat, is dried in the sun. For sikam paa, the dried pork belly is then is fried up with dried chilies.

I have to admit, sikam paa was pushing my oily food limits meter when I was in Bhutan. But a small piece at any meal, plus a bunch of the dry chilies, was what I most enjoyed about this famous Bhutanese dish.

Yaksha shakam

If there’s a meat that can be argued as better than dried beef, it’s dried yak meat. Yak is similar tasting to beef, but it has a little bit of a different fragrance (without being too gamey), and it supposedly is quite nutritional.

For yaksha shakam, the yak meat is dried into a jerky like meat and it can be cooked in a number of different ways. One of the best versions of dried yak meat that I ate in Bhutan was dried yak cut up and cooked with fermented yak cheese. It was a Bhutanese dish of dreams.

Goep

If you love tripe, goep in Bhutan, slices of tripe stir fried with dried chilies, green onions, and sometimes small vegetables, is an excellent dish.

Just like so many other famous Bhutanese dishes, what I liked most about eating g0ep in Bhutan are all the dried chilies that are included in this dish. The tripe can be a little on the chewy side, but that’s the real texture of tripe.

Juma

Juma is a type of common Bhutanese sausage made with minced meat, rice, and some light spices all filled into an intestines wrapper.

The first thing I could taste on my first bite of juma was the wonderful citrusy zing of Sichuan pepper. Other than that, most versions of Bhutanese juma I tasted were a little plain tasting, but very meaty.

Gondo datshi

Butter egg fry, or gondo datshi, is like the ultimate Bhutanese scrambled eggs you can imagine.

Eggs, are scrambled up with datshi cheese, and a huge amount of butter, and in some cases small bits of dried chili. The result is a very condensed scrambled egg cheese mixture that is fragrant from butter and packed with heartiness.

If you have some Bhutanese butter egg fry, some chili sauce and a mound of Himalayan red rice, you’re in for a wonderful simple meal.

Jasha maru

Jasha maru is Bhutanese chicken stew, or sometimes called a chicken curry.

One of the tastes I love so much about Bhutanese jasha maru is the noticeable ginger taste, that nearly every version of the dish had that I tried. The actual dry spice flavor is quite mild, but the ginger is what really gives this dish its essence.