We were heaving on Friday night. We’ve started to notice a pattern of this every last Friday of the month. I worked it out a while back, but Yeshi, having never been on a proper payroll, had to have it explained to him. Taste Tibet has been his only employer since he arrived in Oxford ten years ago (discounting the one day he worked at the Isis Farmhouse, that is. A short-lived job to be sure, but he baked the same apple cake four times over within the one shift – a winning recipe that he still enjoys cooking).
Back in India, Yeshi was self-employed as well. As for Tibet, there was no such thing as pay day in the village in which he grew up. It is a subsistence way of life: local people work with the seasons, focussing on the agrarian and pastoral tasks that yield what they need. Crops, seeds and other basic necessities are traded between villages. Money is basically useless: Yeshi remembers his parents keeping a wad of cash to fill the gap on top of one of the columns in his house. Sometimes having a little to hand is useful – it means that the family can buy rice or tea in the town, foodstuffs that don’t grow locally. Today there is one shop in the village, but when Yeshi was little there was nowhere to spend your money nearby – certainly no restaurants.
And since the rhythm of life was also slower, with nothing planned out in advance, no timetable, not even a sense of days of the week, every day was a good day to kick back and enjoy. Weekends or the end of the month just weren’t at thing. Any time was ripe for feasting and merriment.
We are open Wednesday – Saturday, and Yeshi encourages you to come and see us any time you feel like eating well. We are definitely quieter on Wednesdays and Thursdays, so if you want to beat the queues…
Here’s a run-down of our opening hours this week:
Wednesday: 5.30-9.30pm (dinner only)
Thursday: 12-3pm (lunch) / 5.30-9.30pm (dinner)
Friday: 12-3pm (lunch) / 5.30-9.30pm (dinner)
Saturday: 12-3pm (lunch) / 5.30-9.30pm (dinner)
Newsletter subscribers! We are offering a free freezer box of Taste Tibet dal again this week to anyone who spends £15 or more with us – on hot food or ready meals. Simply quote the passcode KI-PO (“happy”) at the checkout If you’d like to take advantage of this deal.
See you soon!
Julie and Yeshi
Opening hours this week:
Weds: 5.30-9.30pm
Thurs – Sat: 12-3pm 5.30-9.30pm
☏ 01865 499318
