Tibet Food King Restaurant is located just below the Sera Monastery to provide a convenient lunch for all kinds of tourists at a time. It was opened in 2016 by local Tibetan ex-tour guides with great skills in mixed foreign, Tibetan, and Chinese food with diversity, where you can taste the best food on the roof of the world.
Many travellers thinking that Tibetan cuisine is vegetarian. Yet in many areas, certain green vegetables common in Chinese cooking are, in fact, relatively new.
While wild mushrooms, wild vegetables, and a type of tiny wild yam are foraged or gathered, historically speaking, the Tibetan highlands’ diet is one heavy in meat and dairy. At 4,500 meters (14,764 feet), the Tibetan plateau’s average altitude limits both the growing period and the diversity of crops. Today, with the construction of greenhouses, roads, and passes, one can readily find hot weather loving fruits, such as tomatoes and bananas, in many cities or towns.
However, more rural farming areas are limited by the altitude to root crops such as radishes, turnips, potatoes, and garlic. In some lower altitudes, apples, walnuts, apricots, and some types of bakchoi are common. The alternating landscape of lowland valleys and high grasslands has been a longtime determining factor in the diet and a driving force in regional trade and commerce. To this day, nomads still make trips down the mountains (and vice versa) to sell or trade butter and yoghurt for that quintessential Tibetan staple food: barley.
