The Druk Family Restaurant embraces you with Bhutanese culture. Photo: Tenele Conway.
My whole life has been one extended mission to avoid eating meat and three veg. So when I find myself at The Druk Family Restaurant on a Tuesday night, tearing dried beef apart along the grain, another night of life’s work has come full circle.
Located at the Swinger Hill shops, the moment you walk through the door of The Druk, you are embraced by Bhutanese culture.
While you may not be looking for a history lesson with your dinner, The Druk Framily Restaurant is named after the mythological thunder dragon that looms large in all facets of Bhutanese life and culture and represents strength, wisdom and protection. It tells you all you need to know about dining here. This is about tradition, family and a connection to home.
The menu at The Druk isn’t huge, but it encompasses the key dishes of Bhutanese cuisine, starting with momos. Every meal here should start with momos simply because momos are irresistible. Your choices are vegetarian, beef, pork, and chicken, with all four varieties coming in three options – steamed, fried or chilli – ranging in price from $14 to $17 for a plate.
With two of those descriptions being ways to cook momos and the last being an ingredient, I was intrigued. What does it mean for something to be chilli, apart from the obvious that it will be spicy?
With intrigue on the mind, we chose two varieties of momos: steamed beef and chilli veg.
The steamed beef momos were good; they would have benefitted from being a little hotter in temperature, but the chilli veg – now this is where it’s at!
These elongated parcels are cinched along the centre and sauteed in a rich chilli sauce, so not only does the sauce stick to the wrapper, but it also takes on a fried quality, giving the wrapper texture and chew. Had it not been for the pesky reality of having limited stomach space, I would have ordered another round of these gems.
Steamed beef momos and chilli veg momos. Photo: Martin Conway.
To wash down the momos, we had a Nepalese beer, which was easy to drink and promised us that it was, in fact, Nepal’s coolest beer (interpret that as you will). The drinks menu also contains a range of whiskies and spirits, a selection of cocktails, including a gimlet and a whiskey sour, as well as Korean drinks, soju and makgeolli (rice wine).
Throughout the service, we were serenaded by B-Pop video clips on the large TV at the back of the restaurant. Much like its better-known counterpart K-Pop from Korea, B-Pop from Bhutan consists of mixed groups of young men and women singing boppy love tunes while dancing highly choreographed routines. Artfully filmed in beautiful locations around Bhutan, it’s a good reminder that no matter where in the world you are, everyone is distracted by love.
For mains, we ordered shakam paa ($25) and chow mein with pork ($20), and this is where the excellent service came in.
First, our server checked if we were OK with the fact that shakam is dried beef. Although not stated outright, but reading between the lines, he was telling us that this was an acquired taste. I’ve always been of the opinion that there is only one way to acquire a taste for something, and that’s to eat it.
Second, there are two types of chow mein on the menu with no real differentiation between the two. We were informed that one has a spaghetti-like noodle and the other has an instant noodle. We took the recommendation and went with the spaghetti-like noodles.
Shakam paa and pork belly chow mein. Photo: Martin Conway.
What always strikes me about Bhutanese food is how it is so governed by geography. Being closed off to much of the world until the 1970s, the ingredients are a reflection of local availability and a few limited trade routes.
The shakam is the perfect example of this, and I can see why it came with a warning. This beef is dried (like, really dried). It’s essentially thick-cut jerky. Stir-fried in a mix of dry red chilli, onion, tomato, ginger, garlic and vegetables, I found myself eating it with my fingers in order to pull the meat along the grain with my teeth and then dunk it in the soy and chilli sauces that came with the momos.
The dried nature of it meant that it tended to embed itself between my teeth (don’t get me wrong, that’s not a complaint). I actually really enjoyed this dish. I could picture myself huddled next to a fire in the mountains of Bhutan, where meat is preserved for longevity.
Our noodle dish chow mein, as you may have guessed, originated in China but is fully incorporated into Bhutanese culture, having made its way there not directly but via trade routes through India. The spaghetti-like noodles, as they were described to us, were a good choice as their firmness complemented the fried crispy pork belly, and the flavour of the wheat noodles suited the fact that the dish wasn’t dripping in sauce.
Many other menu items caught my eye during our visit: Ema Datshi ($17) is a creamy cheese-based stew and Bhutan’s national dish. Thukpa ($18-$20) is a broth-based soup with noodles and optional meat additions, and Jasha Maru (22) is a spicy Bhutanese chicken stew. Plenty of reasons for me to come back and tick off another night where meat and three don’t cross my dinner plate.
The Druk Family Restaurant is located at the Swinger Hill shops and is open weekdays from 4 pm to 9 pm, and on weekends from 12 noon to 9 pm.
