For zealous travelers and photographers who are keen on traveling Tibet, it is a place where they could relieve the pains for missing Tibet, while for the white-collar, it seems to be a port to shake off the tiresome work and escape from the hustle and bustle of the city.

It's Sunday night around seven o'clock. The A Ji Chong Tibetan Café amid the bustling SOHO central business district started its peak business hours of the day.

The A Ji Chong Tibetan Café in the SOHO central business district of Beijing. [Photo by Mirenda Wu from China Tibet Online] 

Homelike atmosphere

The fragrant Tibetan incense, a huge prayer wheel and delightful Tibetan song-"Places Where Girls Tread"-greeted me upon entering the café.

A Ji Chong, a name derived from a Tibetan ballad is the only Tibetan Café run by native from Lhasa who resides in Beijing, where about ten restaurants serve Tibetan fare.

Different from other Tibetan eateries, A Ji Chong forsakes the shining and luxurious decorations marked with Tibetan architectures, but prefers a more leisure and homelike style similar to the sweet tea house in Lhasa.

"We wanna to make diners feel at home. A home that is not necessarily magnificent but comfortable enough to dine in," said Gongbu, brother of the owner, who helps deal with the daily affairs of the café.

Tibetan waiters and waitress of the A Ji Chong Tibetan Café, photo by Mirenda from CTIC, June 20, 2010.

Household articles colleted from rural Tibetans such as water vat, porcelain pot used for serving butter tea and highland barley wine are decorated on the second floor, making people wonder whether they are in Beijing or somewhere in Tibet. However, to everyone’s curiosity, all the decorations, desks and chairs look timeworn.

"Most of them are bought from local households in Shigtase, Lhasa, Nagri and Nagqu prefectures. Dated as they are, they are more convincing to show diners the real life of Tibetans, especially the rural people," Gongbu explained.

"Our waiters and waitresses are from Tibet too. They can speak fluent Mandarin to better serve customers in Beijing," Gongbu said with much pride.

The Tibetan food served in the A Ji Chong Tibetan Café. In the middle is the Gorchom Kidney Beans which was invented by the owner Dorje.[Photo by Mirenda Wu from China Tibet Online]

Quasi-Tibetan dishes

Although the owner tries to offer diners an "authentic Tibetan taste", he admits "localizing" Tibetan dishes to meet the local and western palates.

Gongbu said that Tibetan people ate cheese, zanba (roasted highland qingke barley flour), yak meat, mutton, and pork most with fewer vegetables and grains, and the cuisine is different from that in inland cities.

"People are not used to the taste all at once, so we make some compromises in cooking methods yet the ingredients are 100 percent authentic," Gongbu said.

For the first-comers, the waiters always recommend some dishes which are easier to be accepted such as Tibetan sweat tea, dough drops and braised potatoes.

"The dough drops which costs only 12 yuan is the most popular course. Many white-collars around come here specially for this course."

Tibetan sweet tea is the most popular drink in the A Ji Chong Tibetan Café, photo by Mirenda from CTIC, June 20, 2010.

To cater to the vegetarians, A Ji Chong also offers quasi-Tibetan dishes such as yogurt mixed with highland fruit, mixed vegetables in inland and Tibet.

Every course has a cute and warm name, like Tibetan Mom-cooked Tomatoes, Tashi Delek Mixed Vegetables and Gorchom Kidney Beans.

"Gorchom Kidney Beans was invented by my brother and is our special." Braised kidney beans are encircled with a ring of streamed breads on an iron pot, looking like dancing Gorchom, a Tibetan dance that people dance and sing in a circle.

"It is very Tibetan," said Liu Yang from Haidian District of Beijing. "The sweet tea is nice and cheap."

"The waiters are very kind, patient and hospitable. They gave us each a Tibetan song CD when we left. I like it very much although it took us too much time to wait for the courses to be served," a user surnamed Icy commented on the Dianping.com, a popular restaurant review site.

The Tibetan sweet tea served in the A Ji Chong Tibetan Café. In the middle is the Gorchom Kidney Beans which was invented by the owner Dorje.[Photo by Mirenda Wu from China Tibet Online]

Spread of Tibetan culture

When I was in the cafe, Dorje happened to go back to Lhasa with his wife, a Han person. It was his brother Gongbu received me.

Dorje, a cook proficient in Chinese, western and Tibetan foods, is the owner of A Ji Chong. At the bottom of his heart, he hopes he can introduce the authentic Tibetan culture, especially Tibetan cuisine, to people outside Tibet and other Tibetan-inhabited areas.

Before coming to Beijing, he opened a Tibetan café in the Jiuzhaigou Scenic Spot of southwest China's Sichuan Province. In 2002, he moved his café to Beijing as he believed the capital would be a better place to realize his dream.

As the boss, he cooks personally as long as he can. Apart from him, there are three other Tibetan cooks in his café, who are all his apprentices.

"My brother is a very easy-going and straightforward man. Man is used to hiding his words in heart. He seldom talks about his dream, but when he has a drop in his eyes, he says a lot," Gongbu told the reporter.

Mentioning about his hometown, Gongbu, who works for CCTV 4 in Beijing, said his friends know little about Tibet and are looking forward to "tasting" the Tibetan culture.

"Once there came a Japanese man with a magazine in his hands. He told me he knew our shop through the magazine and that day he specially came to experience Tibetan culture," Gongbu said proudly. "I was moved by him."

Predicament of Tibetan cuisine

Browsing the Dianping.com, many users consider Tibetan food as a bit more expensive than other restaurants on par in Beijing.

"To be frank, it is a bit expensive. The cargo expense is a big problem," Gongbu explained. "Most of the raw materials are transported from Tibet to ensure the original taste."

Tibet is still a strange place for many people outside the region, which may hinder the promotion and progress of Tibetan food. "The promotion is still not enough. Without a true understanding of Tibet, you will never accustom to the Tibetan food," said Gongbu.

"By the time there are about one hundred Tibetan café in Beijing, the Tibetan culture will be known to more people and its food will become popular at the same time," he added.

He hopes that Tibetan food will be one of their choices in the future when people are talking about eating out.

"But at present, there was still a long way to go," Gongbu answered with a shrug.

Gongbu said he took an aversion to the peddlers selling fake and coarse Tibetan ornaments as they mislead people about the Tibetan culture.

Dorje married a Han girl in Beijing a few years ago while Gongbu is now dating with a girl from Jiangxi Province. The two brothers have faith in achieving their dreams in the future.