Retired Nomads Part 4: Tibetan Cooking Class

Thursday October 16, 2025

We drove back to Lhasa from Shigatse on the Friendship Highway, an upgraded road with dozens of long tunnels where one went for miles. It took about 5 hours or so, and we had a comfort stop where we checked out the local market.

at the Hilton, I had to sit on the ram

Hilton

vacuum packed drumsticks

it was meat - we thought it looked like poop in a bag

with the altitude all the packages were inflated

views from the van windows

We arrived at the Shangri-La Hotel in Lhasa where we would spend 1 night before flying out to Kathmandu.

still don't know what this thing is in the shower - online suggests it's to make the shower a steam room

The guide tried to get us to have lunch and not do the cooking class that evening but we said we preferred to have lunch at the hotel and do the class. He had another assignment that evening and another trip back to Base Camp with another group and he was “done” with us. Shouldn’t have been our problem…..

The bar wasn’t open for lunch today, so we went to the atrium where we had the great desserts and ordered from the same menu. This time we ordered and got the hamburger (not a club sandwich) and rings and we split that. Tom & Cathy had Fish & Chips.

Kelsang picked us up at the hotel and we drove the short distance to the Tibetan Family Kitchen. It’s a restaurant run by a husband and wife and they offer cooking classes geared to tourists or anyone that wants to learn Tibetan cooking. Kelsang said since he had another tour starting tomorrow, that a different guide would drive us to the airport. (same driver)

We were to go to a local market to shop for ingredients, but we didn’t do that. (we didn’t care) The guide had a bag of things that we thought he had already picked up for us; however, he stopped at a store and gave it to someone there. The store had a lot of large high-end rungs and wall hangings that we weren’t interested in, so we continued on to the restaurant.

guide stopped here to give them a bag of something

We arrived at the restaurant, and the lady never told us her name, but her English was excellent, and she easily showed us how to make things, and we could laugh and joke with her.

We got to choose what we wanted for dinner and then she took us to the kitchen to make our dinner. For those that don’t care for Asian food, they also had hamburgers and pizza if you chose to make something like that since you eat what you make.

We chose Tibetan beef dumplings aka Momo, rice and lentils, and fried potatoes. Milk tea, beer and Cokes were offered.

Decisions made; we were taken to the kitchen.

arrival at the restaurant

aprons were donned

I made the dough for the dumplings or momo, while Greg had a cleaver and cut thin strips of yak meat which had been frozen, and she thawed it in microwave.

washing dishes from their lunch rush

making the dough

Greg chopping the yak meat

cutting the dough that had been shaped into logs

the dumpling filling

Greg mixing the filling with vegetables

prepping vegetables for the restaurant

portioning the dough

forming the disks of dough

rolling the dough into circles

filling and crimping the dumplings

The dough rested while I peeled and thinly sliced potatoes. Then we formed the disks of dough thicker in the middle to hold the filling. We added the prepared meat mixture, and she showed us how to pleat the pocket to seal it. While they steamed for about 10 minutes we made the sweet rice.

the finished dumplings

She fried the cooked rice in butter with red Lentils, which they eat for good luck at New Years, and a sprinkle of sugar.

She parboiled the potatoes before frying them and we took the rice and the potatoes to start eating while she finished steaming the dumplings and she fried half so we could have it both ways.

the lentils (similar)

adding the cooked rice

the finished rice

frying the potatoes

like hash browns

our platter of momo

We were so full and couldn’t finish it all. We waited for the guide to come and get us and we walked back to where we were left off. He told us the driver was done for the day, and he put us in a taxi. The driver smoked the entire way back to the hotel and he left us on the street in front of the drive up to the hotel entrance.

walking back to the taxi

waiting for the taxi

We wanted to walk to the store for sodas and Dove chocolate bars but needed to use the restroom and didn’t want to walk all the way up the hill to walk back down again. We checked out the lower entrance and found it went to the Asian restaurant that we ate at and used the restrooms there and then when we returned from the store, we used the entrance again and took the escalator to our level.