Bhutan food: ema datshi, red rice, momo and suja

Chilli and cheese: ema datshi and the datshi family

The Department of Tourism puts it plainly: chillies are an essential part of nearly every Bhutanese dish, and datshi, the local cheese, is in almost all of them. Boiling, steaming and stewing are central to traditional cooking, with rice and stews making up a meal. In the villages you will see chillies drying everywhere: on roofs, hanging from windows and laid out on the ground.

Ema datshi is the national dish: 'ema' means chillies and 'datshi' cheese. It is a stew of yak cheese, garlic, oil, split chillies, onion and tomato, eaten with red rice, and the Department of Tourism notes that some people like it thick and cheesy and others soupier. It is served from homes to restaurants across the country.

The same sauce makes a family of dishes whose names end in datshi. Kewa datshi is potato in cheese sauce with green chilli, and shakam datshi adds dried beef. Shamu datshi, mushrooms in cheese, is the mild one: the Department of Tourism calls it a common, simple dish of mushrooms, vegetables, a pinch of salt and cheese, made with matsutake in season and with other mushrooms the rest of the year. Ezay is chilli with soft cheese.

To see the raw materials, walk through the Centenary Farmers' Market in Thimphu: about 400 stalls over two floors in a hall on the bank of the Wang Chhu below the town, open from Friday morning to Sunday night, with Saturday morning the busiest, according to Little Bhutan, a licensed Thimphu operator. Chillies are sold fresh, sun-dried and ground, beside datshi, the soft white cheese, strings of chugo, dried yak cheese, red rice and buckwheat. Entry is free.

Red rice, paa and jasha maru

Rice is the base of a traditional meal; in the past, the Department of Tourism notes, people ate it three times a day, and rural families still do. The prized grain is red rice, nutty and earthy, grown by farmers in the western and central valleys for centuries. Red and white rice both accompany western Bhutanese meals, and Bhutan’s breweries even make a red-rice lager.

Paa means a meat stew. Phaksha paa is pork and shakam paa beef: slices of meat stir-fried with whole dried red chillies, simmered until tender with radish and spinach, and finished with dried meat and strips of fresh green chilli. Jasha maru is the chicken dish: diced chicken stewed with chillies, onion, tomato and coriander, eaten with red rice. Goep, tripe stir-fried with dried chillies and spring onion, is the one most visitors miss; the Department of Tourism finds it in small roadside eateries.

Chicken, yak meat, pork, beef and dried fish are all eaten in the west. Your guide can point you to the paa of the day at a local restaurant, since the hotel buffet may stick to chicken and vegetables.

Momo, thukpa and the snacks of the west

Western Bhutan shares Tibet's dumplings and noodles. Momo are steamed dumplings, with a vegetable or chicken filling and a chilli sauce on the side; thukpa is noodle soup; juma is a sausage; and khabzay are fritters, eaten as biscuits with butter tea. The Department of Tourism lists momo, juma and thukpa as the snacks of budget restaurants, where a meal costs under Nu 500 a person.

In Thimphu, Zombala Restaurant on Main Traffic heads Daily Bhutan's 2021 list of the town's momo places as the first in the market, and Momo Corner, opposite the Clock Tower, is its pick for gravy momo. For a quick lunch between dzongs, a momo shop is faster than the tourist buffet.

Regional dishes: Punakha, Bumthang and the east

Rice and spicy stews are eaten everywhere, but the Department of Tourism points out that a Bhutanese can taste the difference between an ema datshi from Paro and one from Lhuentse in the east. Four regions are worth looking for.

Punakha: the village of Nobgang, home of the four Queen Mothers, is known for ema lumtsho (fried chillies), jatsa gondo (sieved egg), maekhu (a puffed-rice snack) and above all aezey nyergum, a chilli paste of 29 ingredients. If your week includes a night in Punakha, as our Thimphu and Punakha guide suggests, these are the dishes to look for in the valley.

Haa and Paro: hoentay are buckwheat dumplings stuffed with turnip leaves, amaranth seeds, cottage cheese and butter and seasoned with chilli, onion and ginger. Families in Haa and Paro make them for Lomba, the harvest New Year of the lunar calendar, and Daily Bhutan reports that they now appear on restaurant menus too.

Bumthang, the north-central valley, eats buckwheat: khurle pancakes, puta noodles, jangbuli pasta and chogdan polenta, with its own Swiss-style cheese, butter and curd. Further east, corn dishes and zoedoe, a pungent cheese the Department of Tourism compares to blue cheese, take over; Trashi Yangtse is known for asham thukpa, corn porridge. In the south, Lhotshampa cooking brings rice and roti with lentils, curries and pickles.

Suja, ara and what to drink

Suja is butter tea: tea churned with butter and salt, made with yak butter and milk in the high valleys. It is salty rather than sweet. Tea is the most common drink in Bhutan, and a good host will not let a guest leave without one. Ngaja is the sweet milk tea, close to Indian chai. Both are served with zaw, puffed rice, or sip, pounded corn. Refusing the offer is considered rude, so accept at least a sip.

Ara is the home spirit, fermented or distilled from rice, wheat, millet, buckwheat, maize or barley, sometimes warmed with butter and egg; banchang and sinchang are fermented grain drinks. Bhutan also brews beer, including Druk 11000, Red Panda and a red-rice lager, and makes whisky such as K5. Local alcohol is sold in supermarkets, pubs and bars, and you will meet ara at festivals and in farmhouses. Tuesdays are no longer dry days: since 4 July 2023 restaurants, hotels and other licensed businesses may sell alcohol on Tuesdays too, BBS reported from the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Employment.

Eating on a guided tour

The packages priced in our Bhutan trip cost guide include breakfast, lunch and dinner: breakfast and dinner at your hotel, lunch at a restaurant on the route. Byways' budget package, for example, takes lunch in a local tourist restaurant. Byways leaves out drinks and bottled water in restaurants and hotels; our budgets count them in a drinks, snacks and SIM line, with the 10% buffer covering a fuller drinks bill.

The Department of Tourism notes that roadside eateries and homes cook eye-wateringly spicy, while hotels and restaurants cook milder for foreign guests. If you want the real thing, say so on the first day: ask for a local lunch, a farmhouse meal or ema datshi made the Bhutanese way.

A farmhouse lunch is the easiest way to eat at local strength. Some operators build it into the week: Access Bhutan Tours & Treks, a licensed Thimphu operator, serves daily lunch at restaurants or traditional farmhouses and adds an archery session at a local farmhouse and a hot stone bath after the Tiger's Nest hike. In Haa and Paro the farmhouse dish to ask about is hoentay, made for Lomba, the harvest New Year, and the Department of Tourism points to rural areas, festivals and homestays for ara. On Access Bhutan's packages the farmhouse meal is one of the included lunches; with another operator, ask for one in place of a restaurant lunch.

At the table, people throw a little food or drink into the air as an offering before eating, everyone waits until all are served, and the host serves themselves only after the guests have started.

Vegetarian food, dairy and allergies

Vegetarians are well served: many everyday dishes are vegetable stews, and hotel set meals are built around them: Tashi Tagye Hotel in Punakha lists lunch or dinner as two vegetable dishes with rice, dal and salad. It is harder for vegans, because the Department of Tourism notes that nearly all vegetable dishes are cooked with cheese, and suja is made with butter. Ask for dishes 'without datshi' and for dal and vegetables cooked in oil.

Chilli is the other thing to watch. Hotel food is milder, but a pot of ema datshi in a local restaurant can be very hot; start with kewa datshi or a cheese momo. Stock, egg and wheat are used differently from kitchen to kitchen, so tell your operator about allergies when you book, and remind your guide each day.

What a day of meals costs

On the packages in our cost guide, meals are already paid for. If you eat outside the package, these are the prices listed when checked on 1 November 2026, per person (USD 1 is Nu 94.72 at the Bank of Bhutan’s TT buying rate for 31 October to 2 November 2026):

In Thimphu, Jambayang Resort's set dinner costs Nu 750, 850 or 950 and lunch Nu 650 or 750, with 5% GST and 10% service charge added. Mid-range restaurants run to about Nu 1,000 a person and high-end ones from Nu 2,000, the Department of Tourism says. The whole week with rooms, meals, guide and fees is priced in our Bhutan trip cost guide.