The worst dining experience is...

I had not yet been to the Rocky Mountains in 2006 but that didn’t stop me from trying to imagine what it would be like to be amongst such jagged, snow-capped, lonesome peaks. That year, I took a flight from Shanghai to Lhasa, Tibet and realized that the imagination alone cannot capture the dramatic mountainous landscape of the Himalayas. When I walked out of the airport my first impression was of the Hudson River School mountainous masterpiece all around me. My second impression was no less original but far more difficult to put into words. A film hung over the air and penetrated my nostrils, defying any attempt for me to block out its pungent force. This was not the same pollution that hung over much of the rest of China. That air was tainted with man made products: cement, steel, and so many indescribable chemicals. The air in Lhasa had a musky scent that was the product of a much more natural factory: the yak.

To treat the yak as just another animal is to underestimate its deity status, practically and spiritually, in Tibetan society. Tibetans honor and use the yak for every manner of product. Upon entering a taxi in Lhasa I expected to temporarily escape the sharp, shaggy scent of the beast. To my chagrin, my driver’s backseat upholstery had been removed and replaced with an attractively embroidered but predictably unpleasant yak hair cover. Tibetan monks will tell you that the Potala Palace, the most sacred landmark in a city of holy sites, is heated and lit with thousands of yak milk candles. It is like walking down the streets of Philadelphia and being unable to escape (for better or for worse) the scent of grilling beef, peppers, and cheese on every street corner.

The inescapable scent of yak in every imaginable form besides food made me loathe the prospect of eating the helpful animal. However, I knew I would not escape my fate when my first meal in Lhasa occurred at the Mad Yak Restaurant. The restaurant was a buffet with two lines. The first line, labeled CHINESE, looked like much of the unimpressive tourist faire that had constituted many of the planned meals I had participated in as part of my tour through China. That buffet line was eerily lit, lukewarm, and unattended; a small microcosm of the state of Tibet under Chinese rule. By contrast, the TIBET line was festively dressed in spite of the similar look and smell to each of the dishes on offer. Yak had none-too-mysteriously found its way into every dish available. I had to find a seat to stave off the wave of nausea that accompanied that smell which I had for so long tried to compartmentalize away from my taste buds. If I wanted to embrace Tibetan culture, I could not shy away from eating the local delicacy. I was unable to rise from what I could only imagine was a yak stuffed and yak woven chair, as if my body had been melted to the seat with the yak butter candles that I had seen in every temple and store in the city. But the stomach has a way of compelling all of the other organs to fall in line, and so it was that I found myself walking timidly to the head of the Tibetan buffet line.

My natural inclinations away from offal and body parts that look like the living thing (heads, feet, testicles) made it easy for me to stave off the first few offerings of the buffet line. It was far more difficult for me to refuse a nameless offering with unidentifiable yak bits coated in dark oil colored sauce. Perhaps, nothing in this restaurant would grace the pages of an exotic Western gourmet magazine, but my stomach would not allow me to leave this line without sustenance. I settled on light yak curry and dark yak curry, hoping that the equally nose invading powers of curry would provide me respite from the gamey yak smell that crept out of each pot on the line. I sat at a table with five other inquisitive Americans, each of us wondering what would happen when we bit into the sacred native beast of the Himalayas. My health and energy, not to mention my pride as an adventurous and culturally respectful eater, rested on my ability to face down my yak destiny. I looked down at my plate and pursed my lips. Like the opening minutes of a university examination, I observed my plate and tried to see through its complexities, avoid its pitfalls, and cherish the taste of victory without ever raising my pen (or fork). But as I inspected my meal further, I was reminded of all the other things that yak had come to represent on this trip. Yak was clothing, fuel, lighting, shelter, comfort, and symbol of worship. I admired the reverence that the Tibetan people show their national animal. However, the yak had been so far removed from the realm of food stuffs that I could no longer bring myself to bite down into it. I excused myself from my yak eating friends and joined the Chinese buffet line.

Ashamed that I could not bring myself to eat the yak on my plate, I grabbed the first option I recognized from the Chinese line, chicken with cashews, and sulked back to my table, defeated. At least I would find solace in one of my Chinese comfort food favorites. I knew I was in trouble upon my first bite. The chicken, or those parts which I could identify, was oily and pathetically lean. The cashews were stale, which combined with the sauce, created an un-food like rubbery note to the dish. Perhaps my meal failed me because Tibet does not have access to the same sorts of ingredients, like the tropical cashew, that can be found in other parts of China. Or perhaps, it was the lack of attention paid by Tibetan cooks who only paid lip service to Chinese customers and their tastes. I am inclined to believe that it was my shame and fear that made everything I consumed on that night unpalatable.

The night carried on with costumed yak dancing and singing. Even after a few drinks and all of the noise, I could not ignore my perceived shortcomings as an eater. I resolved myself to make up for my faults at the next possible opportunity and celebrate the yak on my palate. After a few more drinks and after failing to sleep all the way through sunrise I was taken ill with pain in my chest and stomach cramps. I suspect that my Chinese meal was to blame. The health clinic in Tibet declared it altitude sickness. I was confined to my bed, and limited to a water and bread diet, until I exited the city two days later. I have not seen or smelled or had the opportunity to taste a yak since that day. I have come to realize that the worst dining experience is the one never had and that will always take me back to that nostalgically musky smelling town of Lhasa and a plate of rustic yak curry.