Food lovers in Dagana will soon have the choice to order authentic Bhutanese cuisine. The Bhutan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) trained the hoteliers and restaurant owners in the district on Bhutanese cuisines recently. The training is one of the initiatives to revive the economy of small business entities, which are affected by the pandemic.
More than 30 people operating hotels and restaurants in six gewogs of Dagana were trained to prepare over 60 Bhutanese cuisines. They learned how to prepare dishes that are native to the country without adding any imported flavour enhancers.
“We always talk about having not enough to buy vegetables and spices. But after attending the training, we came to know that there are many ways to prepare a variety of dishes even without imported vegetables and spices,” said Dorji, a Restaurateur.
“I am hopeful of earning a better income once I start preparing the newly learnt dishes in my restaurant. Earlier, I used to add plenty of imported spices to make dishes more delicious. But now we are taught how to prepare dishes with home-available spices. I am pretty sure Bhutanese customers will prefer our own dishes,” added Sangay Lhamo, also a Restaurateur.
“Many of us had a problem preparing authentic Bhutanese cuisines. So we land up serving our customers with spice-laden dishes and we failed to serve pure Bhutanese dishes,” said Nar Bdr. Bal, the Business Community Representative of Dagana.
The training is organized with support from the Transitional Trade Support Facility Programme. The BBCI encourages hoteliers and restaurants to add these dishes to their daily menus to revive some of the age-old Bhutanese cuisines.
“It is our mandate to provide support to small business entities to revive their economy which has been hit hard by the pandemic. This we can do it by providing skills and organizing capacity-building programmes because providing monetary support alone will not help bring back business to normalcy,” said Kelzang, the Regional Secretary of the BCCI Regional Office in Gelephu.
“Apart from preparing the Bhutanese dishes, I also taught them how to become successful businessmen. We also talked about food costing calculation to generate a decent income from food businesses,” said Gangkar Wangdi, the Trainer.
Some elderly in the district say such Bhutanese culinary training will go a long way in reviving some lost and forgotten Bhutanese cuisines. Similar training is underway in Haa.
Pema Tshewang, Dagana
Edited by Sonam
