Why is it that there are so few Tibetan restaurants? In the UK you can count them on just the one hand.
In part it’s because there aren’t many Tibetan people here (certainly fewer than a thousand). But there’s another reason, and you see it more clearly in countries where Tibetans are better represented.
We spent last weekend in Belgium, where an estimated 5,000-6,000 Tibetan people now reside. Our friends in Brussels, where we stayed, spotted this place (pictured) in the weeks before our arrival. It’s a Japanese restaurant, but it’s adorned with all things Tibetan: a giant poster of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital; prayer flags; pictures of His Holiness XIV Dalai Lama, and so on.
There are more Tibetan touches when it comes to the menu. Bookending a smorgasbord of sushi and sashimi, the list kicks off with momos and closes with tsampa, Tibet’s staple food.
We popped our heads into the restaurant at lunchtime on Saturday. The sign on the door read “closed”, but it’s the Tibetan way to turn the handle anyway. Yeshi spotted someone inside. “Tashi Delek!” he called. “Tashi Delek!” came the reply.
We went back that night for dinner. Turns out that the restaurant is entirely Tibetan-run. Lots of Japanese eateries are managed by Tibetans, Yeshi tells me. Last year he visited a friend in Paris who owns a huge, bustling Japanese restaurant in the city’s main business district.
Tibetan food is not well known outside of Tibet, he says, so feels like a big risk. Many Tibetans just turn their culinary passions to different cuisines – Japanese food in particular – imagining more bankable returns.
This makes me think of Oxford’s Covered Market, where I know of two Japanese food joints that are actually run by Chinese people. I remember that when we used to have our stall in the open market, the Chinese dumpling sellers once told us they thought we were “lucky” to be Tibetan (oh the irony) as we could charge more of a premium.
Even Yeshi has thought about going Japanese along the way (“Yeshi’s Sushi”, he said he’d call it), but that was mostly because there’s no VAT on cold takeaway food, and who wouldn’t want to keep 100% of every sale when we only take home 80%?
We’re counting down to Christmas now. A heads up that Taste Tibet will close for a couple of weeks from Monday 22nd December. For now we’re open all the usual hours, as follows:
Weds – Fri: 5-9.30pm (dinner only)
Saturday: 12-3/ 5-9.30pm
Sunday: 12-3 / 5-9pm
This week’s menu is up on the website – check it. Come by for dine in, take away and a wide range of freezer food. We also have good stocks in store of chilli oil and fermented mooli, and can even bag up our truffles all Christmas fancy if you ask! And don’t forget our cookbook: signed copies are available both at the restaurant and online.
Finally, if you’re in the market for TT discounts and freebies, just subscribe to our weekly Substack to receive all of this and more direct to your inbox.
Hope to see you before doors close for Christmas!
Julie and Yeshi
Opening hours this week:
Weds – Fri: 5-9.30pm
Saturday: 12-3pm 🥢 5-9.30pm
Sunday: 12-3pm 🥢 5-9pm
☏ 01865 499318
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