Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibetan dishes are most popular in Shangri-La County. You can find a restaurant there easily since various restaurants are all over the county. The Sichuan and Yunnan dishes are quite similar in that they are both hot. Also, you can also taste the Yunnan rice-flour thin noodles and round rice noodles there. As for Tibetan dishes, most of them are made up of the local beef and Tibetan snacks like tsambas, buttered tea and big pancakes are available. The various hotels there offer various local delicacies.
It’s not a problem to locate a place for eating in Shangri-La County. So, the independent traveler doesn’t have to worry about that. Furthermore, prices in Shangri-La are all reasonable. While in Huyue Gorge, the price there is higher and its special food is the local chicken. The price of fish in Jinsha River is also expensive. You have to ask the price before ordering a dish.
Standing in the plateau, Shangri-La has a cold climate. When it comes to food, the Tibetan flavor is dominant there. Its main agricultural products are barley and wheat. Rice and corn are also grown in a small amount of valleys down the river. Buttered tea and tsambas staple foods there. The buttered tea in Shangri-La is stronger in flavor than that in Lijiang. For the Tibetan people, yak is the main livestock. The milk of the yaks can also be made into cheese. The yak meat can either braised or stewed. They are all incredibly scrumptious.
Buttered tea is essential for the Tibetans to keep a house for guests. The local people usually have tsambas in each meal. Food made of flour and rice is the main food in supper. As the buttered tea is high in calories, it can help people stay warm and replenish if necessary for heat to circulate their bodies. Thus, it is the best drink for the local people in Shangri-La. The tsamba is also made from butter. Such local delicacies as rice in sausages, lute meat, Naosuan fish, and noodles fried with bitter tea and tsamba with hams are all the typical food in Daqing and they’re definitely worth a shot.
The barley wine is one of the main drinks in the Tibetan region. Local people always welcome you with barley wine to show their hospitality once you visit their homes. The barley wine is pure and rich in taste. The way of making barley wine can be traced back to thousands years ago. Today, there is a type of wine called “Zangmi” (a kind of Tibetan wine made from barley), which is similar to grape wine. Legend has it that it was first made by a missioner who traveled to Shangri-La. Its taste is different from that of the ordinary grape wine in that it’s milder with a sour flavor of barley. If you’re visiting a Tibetan house, you have to follow the customs there while dining. For instance, you cannot drink the barley wine until you have flipped your forefinger and middle finger to the sky three times and stated, “zha xi de le.”
