I landed via a three hour flight from Bangkok. excited to try the food in Bhutan. The drive through the valley to my lodge felt like stepping out of time. The road curved along the Mo Chhu River, its surface shining like silk under the late-afternoon sun. Then came the wooden bridge — narrow, humming softly with prayer flags — and the quiet world beyond.

Inside the Pemako Punakha, everything spoke in a calm language of wood, stone, and stillness. Carved beams framed views of forest and river. Prayer wheels turned slowly in the wind. The air smelled of pine, butter lamps, and something sweet — perhaps honey from the village nearby.

I had come to rest, but Pemako had other plans. It wanted me to notice. To taste. To feel the valley instead of simply looking at it.

First Meal: Where Flavour Meets Story

That first evening at Alchemy House, the hotel’s traditional restaurant, the air was thick with the scent of firewood and melting cheese. A butter lamp flickered near the counter, throwing small shadows across copper pots and hanging red chillies.

Dinner began with ema datshi — Bhutan’s national dish. Chillies, not as garnish but as vegetable, steeped in molten cheese. Spicy, yes, but the kind that makes you alert rather than numb. It came with red rice, nutty and warm, and a side of kewa datshi — potatoes cooked in the same buttery sauce.

There was also shakam paa, air-dried beef sautéed with chillies, and dumplings filled with wild spinach. Every bowl tasted of effort and altitude — dishes born not in kitchens but in a way of life.

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Going with the Seasons

When the chef, Sonam, joined me, he explained quietly, “Everything we eat comes from close by. We dry our meat in winter and cook to stay warm. There is no hiding of flavours.”

“What do foreigners usually think of the food in Bhutan?” I asked.

He smiled. “Some fall in love. Some cry from the chilli. But all remember it.”

He poured me a cup of suja, butter tea made from yak butter and salt. It tasted more like broth than tea — thick, strange, comforting. “This,” he said, “is what keeps us alive in the mountains.”

And I understood. Bhutanese food doesn’t aim to please; it aims to belong.

All You Need to Know About Bhutanese Food

Bhutanese cuisine is bold, earthy, and deeply local — shaped by altitude, cold winters, and a national love of chillies. Meals often revolve around red rice, cheese, and vegetables, with meat preserved through drying or smoking.

• Shakam Paa — Air-dried beef stir-fried with dried red chillies and a touch of ginger. Smoky, spicy, and deeply satisfying, it’s a winter staple served with red rice.

• Chicken Maru — Tender chicken simmered with tomatoes, onions, and Bhutanese chilli paste. Less fiery than beef dishes but rich in warmth and aroma.

• Ema Datshi — The signature dish of Bhutan. Fresh or dried chillies cooked in local cheese until creamy and intense. Every family has its version.

• Izay — A vibrant chilli salsa found on every table, made with crushed chillies, coriander, garlic, and a squeeze of lime. Bright, sharp, and addictive.

• Jaju — A gentle soup of spinach or turnip leaves in a light milk or butter broth — a soothing contrast to the country’s bolder dishes.

• Kewa Datshi — Potatoes cooked in cheese and butter, often served as a milder companion to ema datshi. Comfort food for cold days.

• Saag Fry — Stir-fried leafy greens, usually mustard or spinach, cooked with garlic and butter. Fresh, fragrant, and grounding.

Together, these dishes express the Bhutanese idea of balance — fire and calm, simplicity and depth — on every plate.

Private Moments of Calm

The next morning, mist clung to the valley like breath on glass. From my villa, I could hear the steady voice of the river. Nothing mechanical, nothing rushed — just nature keeping time.

Pemako’s villas are discreet, built to blend into the slope. Carved wood, wool throws, local clay vases. Every corner feels touched by a hand, not a machine. My private plunge pool steamed faintly in the chill air, framed by pines and prayer flags.

I slipped in and let the warmth hold me. The world had narrowed to sound and sky — birds, water, wind. In Bhutan, idleness is not indulgence. It’s participation. The valley asks you to stop long enough to hear it breathe.

Breakfast with a View & Farm-to-Table Vibes

By breakfast, the fog had lifted, revealing the Punakha River gleaming like a silver thread. I sat on the terrace of Soma, the all-day café, where the tablecloths were handwoven and the honey came from hives up the road.

My meal was simple but confident: red rice porridge with wild honey, a cheese omelette folded around mountain herbs, sautéed mustard greens, and a small bowl of yak yogurt topped with pomegranate seeds. Each bite felt alive — ingredients that had traveled no more than a few hills to reach my plate.

The chef passed by with a basket of greens. “We don’t rush the seasons,” he said. “If we can’t grow it, we wait.”

It felt like a quiet philosophy disguised as breakfast — patience as flavour.

A Culinary Adventure: Spice, Herb & River Essence

Later, I followed the aroma of wood smoke to the outdoor kitchen. The chefs were cooking lunch for a group of monks, moving with steady rhythm — no noise, no hurry.

On the counter lay fiddlehead ferns, mustard greens, wild garlic, and red chillies. A chef named Kinley stirred phaksha paa, pork with dried chillies and ginger, its colour deep as brick. Beside her, another simmered turnip soup in yak butter and coriander.

“Everything here has a temperature,” Kinley said. “The mountains are cold. So our food must be warm.”

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Food in Bhutan : The Wow Factor

She handed me a spoonful. The flavour bloomed slowly — heat first, then salt, then something earthy and enduring. It wasn’t delicate; it was truthful.

When I asked if tourists ever find Bhutanese food too strong, she laughed. “We add less chilli sometimes. But food without fire has no story.”

Later she served lom — dried turnip leaves revived in butter and spice. Modest in appearance, generous in memory. It tasted of resourcefulness, of gratitude for what the land provides.

Watching the monks eat, I realised Bhutanese cooking isn’t performance or invention. It’s preservation — a living map of a country that has learned to thrive on balance and respect.

Dining Beneath the Stars at Five Nectars Bar

As night fell, I climbed the path to Five Nectars Bar, where the terrace floated above the dark river. Lanterns glowed softly, and the scent of lemongrass drifted through the air.

A young bartender named Tashi smiled as I sat down. “Something from the valley?” he asked.

He crushed wild coriander and lemongrass in a stone mortar, added honey from local hives, lime, and sparkling water. “No alcohol?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Then I’ll make you our ‘river walk’,” he said. “It’s what we serve to monks when they visit.”

What Monks Drink

The first sip tasted clean and alive — citrus, herbs, a touch of sweetness. In fact, it didn’t mimic anything. It was its own idea of refreshment.

Tashi leaned over the counter. “People think cocktails need alcohol,” he said. “But here, flavour tells the story.”

He showed me another drink — ara, the local spirit made from fermented rice, tinted gold with turmeric and ginger. The smell was sharp and grounding.

“Everything we serve,” he said, “should remind you of the valley. Otherwise, it’s just decoration.”

When I left, he handed me a sprig of lemongrass. “For your pocket,” he said. “So the scent can follow you home.”

Why I Would Return (And You Should Too)

On my final morning, the valley shimmered under a slow-rising sun. The bridge back to the main road felt longer than it had when I arrived, as if Punakha was reluctant to let me go.

At Pemako, nothing felt rehearsed or ornamental. The flavours, the air, the people — all moved in quiet harmony. However the meals were not performances. They were lessons in presence, reminders that food, like landscape, can nourish more than the body.

I thought of Sonam’s calm voice, Kinley’s easy laughter, and Tashi’s careful hands crushing lemongrass. Together they embodied something rarer than luxury: authenticity without effort.

Travel often measures distance — how far we go, what we leave behind. But Punakha taught me the opposite: how near life can feel when you surrender the need to control it.

I would return for that belonging, for the warmth behind the spice, for the taste of a valley that still listens to itself.

And perhaps, simply, to remember — once more — what stillness tastes like.

READ MORE ABOUT BHUTAN IN TRAVELIFE MAGAZINE

The post Finding Flavour & Quiet Magic in Bhutan appeared first on TRAVELIFE Magazine.

Madrid does not reveal itself all at once. It begins with the warmth of late afternoon light on stone façades, the murmur of voices spilling from shaded plazas, and the faint scent of garlic drifting from the doorway of a busy bar. The city is layered with history, yet it is always ready for the next conversation. And this is invariably about food. For the art of enjoying tapas is a well-loved Spanish ritual both simple and profound.

I have visited Madrid many times, and for many different reasons. But on one particular trip, I made it my mission to find the best tapas bars in Madrid. Tapas are, after all, among Spain’s most famous culinary traditions alongside paella and callos.

That weekend, I turned to Enrique González Mendizábal, a private guide who runs his own company, MadSnail Travel. He promised to reveal some of the city’s best-kept secrets, the kind of places that rarely appear in guidebooks.

We began at one o’clock on a luminous Saturday afternoon, meeting at my hotel, the Westin Palace Madrid. To prepare for an afternoon of feasting, before that I had already taken a leisurely stroll through Puerta del Sol and Plaza Mayor, determined to clock in a few extra steps before surrendering to food, wine, and discovery.

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A FOODIE GUIDE IN MADRID

Some guides open doors. Enrique, our Madrid foodie guide, an entire world unknown to tourists. He is the enthusiastic companion who can move with equal ease between a rustic tavern and a centuries-old archive. A true lover of good food with the aura of an artist who is paid too little, Michelin stars mean nothing to him. Instead, he is fixated on places where locals gather, glasses in hand, to argue politics or poetry over plates of croquetas.

He is also a passionate intellectual with an astonishing memory for history. Dates, names, and anecdotes surfaced in his stories as naturally as wine was poured into glasses. One moment he is describing the way vermouth became Madrid’s afternoon drink; the next, he is recounting tales of Bourbon kings or the writers of the Spanish Golden Age.

With Enrique, an ordinary afternoon in Madrid is a living tapestry of flavors, stories, and unexpected magic. He didn’t just guide us to the best tapas bars in Madrid—he made us feel the city itself was guiding us through him.

THE BEST TAPAS BARS IN MADRID

The moment we met, I blurted out what I had been thinking all morning: “Tapas. As soon as possible.” I was on a mission to uncover the best tapas bars in Madrid, after all. Enrique only smiled, as if he had been waiting for me to say the words.

“Did you know tapas are meant to be free?” he asked, his eyes gleaming. He leaned closer, lowering his voice as though sharing a secret. “They began as small bites chefs offered before the meal. So when I see a place calling itself a tapas bar but charging for every plate—well, it makes me uneasy.”

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Of course I did not know this. I’d been diligently paying for my tapas at every restaurant so far, after all. Enrique read my mind. He said: “But, of course, you have to know where to go, to get the free tapas.”

In that instant, his words reframed the city. Tapas weren’t just food anymore. They were Madrid’s way of saying welcome—an invitation to taste, to linger, to belong.

A TAPAS BAR CRAWL THROUGH MADRID

“Don’t think of this as a tapas tour,” Enrique said. “This is an afternoon tavern crawl through Madrid.”

So we wandered the narrow streets of Las Letras, slipping into bars where bottles lined the walls and the air carried the warm scent of garlic and wine.

At one bustling stop, we squeezed into a sliver of space at the counter—barely enough for three glasses of red, a plate of jamón, a bowl of morcilla, and chorizo so rich it lingered on my tongue long after the last bite.

The counter was worn smooth from years of elbows, the bartenders moved with practiced choreography, and conversations spilled around us in quick bursts of laughter and debate. By then, the world glowed in that Madrid way—bright, noisy, alive—and our crawl had only just begun.

AWAY FROM THE TOURIST TRACK

At last, Enrique steered us toward quieter streets near the Royal Palace. Here, the tourist chatter faded, replaced by the softer rhythm of locals heading home for the evening. The city seemed to exhale, as though saving its secrets for those who knew where to look.

“Where are we going next?” I asked, my voice full of anticipation.

He stopped in front of a nondescript doorway and smiled, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “This is where the real magic happens,” he said. “Tonight, you will see how lobster with rice should truly be done—Madrid style.”

EL MENU DE ALONA

The restaurant El Menú de Alona, tucked away on a modest street near the Royal Palace, was run by a former mechanic and his Ukrainian wife. From the outside, nothing suggested what awaited inside. Yet the moment we opened the door, the scent of lobster rice rushed toward us—rich, briny, irresistible. Locals crowded every table, their conversations rising with the steam from wide, shallow pans.

Enrique leaned closer, lowering his voice as though sharing a treasured secret. “She cooks rice better than most Madrileños,” he swore.

In that moment, I believed him. How could we not sit down? How could we resist tasting the dish that had drawn so many locals here on a Saturday evening, far from the tourist paths? It felt like another step in our search for the best tapas bars in Madrid, a detour that revealed the city’s truest flavors.

IS TINTO DE VERANO BETTER THAN SANGRIA?

“SANGRIA IS FOR TOURISTS”

We let Enrique take charge of the ordering. Within minutes, a frosted pitcher of Tinto de Verano gleamed on the table, its ruby color glowing against the white cloth. Slices of lemon drifted across the surface, catching the light each time we raised our glasses.

Enrique broke the pause with one of his lessons on Madrid cooking and Spanish food traditions. “Sangria is for tourists,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “We locals drink Tinto de Verano.” He raised his glass to seal the point.

I sipped and understood at once. The drink tasted cool, crisp, and quietly refreshing—none of the sticky sweetness that defines sangria abroad. It felt lighter, more playful, and utterly Madrid. In that instant, our search for the best tapas bars in Madrid widened into something deeper: a glimpse into the city’s true flavors and everyday culture.

THE REAL LOBSTER RICE IN MADRID

Then the star of the evening arrived: a vast cauldron of soupy rice with lobster, still bubbling as the waiter set it down. Steam curled upward in fragrant clouds, rich with the scent of the sea and shrimp shells. The dish silenced us for a moment, as if everyone had fallen under the same spell.

The waiter ladled soupy rice into our bowls, and Enrique leaned forward with the air of a professor about to deliver a lesson.

“This isn’t paella,” he said firmly. “It’s a rice dish with lobster. A true paella is dry, and each grain must remain separate. What we have here is something else—a wetter dish, cooked in the rich juice of shrimp heads.”

The distinction mattered to him, and soon it mattered to us as well. The steaming bowls in front of us held not a tourist version of Spanish food, but an honest plate from Madrid’s kitchens: briny, intense, and meant to be shared.

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The meal crowned an afternoon of discovery. We had set out to find the best tapas bars in Madrid, and instead we uncovered the line between myth and tradition, between what travelers imagine and what locals actually eat.

What a wonderful afternoon in Madrid, eating our way through a #Travelife—one tapa, one glass of wine, one unforgettable story at a time.

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Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, El Menu de Alona closed this September 2025. We were fortunate to have tasted her cooking,

The post Eating Like a Local in Madrid appeared first on TRAVELIFE Magazine.

Hokkaido is an outdoors destination all year round. Visitors go skiing during the long winter and then hike and bike the rest of the year. As most of the activities are outdoors, many dining options are also outside. Everyone in these parts loves going on picnics or sitting on benches in parks with a snack.

WHERE TO GO FOR BARBECUE IN HOKKAIDO

Meanwhile, families who visit Hokkaido never leave without having at least one barbecue dinner. It’s the quintessential Hokkaido experience, to hold a barbecue under the stars.

Of course, we were part of the majority who were keen to experience a summer evening barbecue dinner at the Kiroro Tribute Portfolio Hotel in Hokkaido. This is quite famous all over Japan because the ingredients from Hokkaido are considered the best quality of food. Then there’s the fact that the weather in the summer is just amazing. You want to sit outdoors all night long.

DINNER AT THE KIRORO TRIBUTE PORTFOLIO

The Kiroro Tribute Portfolio offers a summer evening barbecue on the terrace of the hotel. It’s very popular among guests and locals, so bookings are required in advance. The hotel team sets up tables in a circle around the fountain, with a large tent in the middle. Lounge music or live music plays all night and there’s a chill vibe all around.

The team sets up a barbecue station for each group, So on every table there is a table-top barbecue grill that’s fired and ready to cook. It holds just enough cooking bricks for about three hours so guests can relax and cook and eat at leisure.

THE BEST INGREDIENTS IN JAPAN

Several trays of food come with the standard package, and it’s really a lot of food. There are assorted cuts of pork, beef and lamp. Then we also had a lot seafood. We had giant shrimps and scallops, and sliced squid. Plus bread to roast and even onigiri.

Of course, there are also vegetables for grilling like tomatoes and asparagus, and traditional Hokkaido food like corn. Dessert is also roasted on the grill, just like everything else.

DESSERT ON THE BARBECUE

Towards the end of dinner, the waitstaff brings a package wrapped in foil. “Place that on the grill and it’ll be ready to eat in a few minutes,” our waiter told us, with a smile. We did as we were told. The result was a delicious mash of warmed up marshmallows, bananas with brown sugar and some crumbled cookies. It was so good that I wouldn’t have minded getting seconds.

THE BEST GRILLED CHEESE

Aside from the dinner package, there’s also an a la carte menu. We ordered a Hokkaido Camembert cheese for roasting from this menu just to try what it was like. It arrived with slices of bread and toast. Again, we were told to place the Camembert cheese on the grill for a few minutes.

When we finally opened it up, it was warm, soft and gooey. Perfect for spreading on toasts for an appetizer. Who would have thought that grilled Camembert cheese could be so delicious?

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Just as we were enjoying dessert, there was a commotion at the other end of the Kiroro Tribute Portfolio. It turned out that the fireworks were about to start, so many people were on their way to the field to watch. Of course we joined the crowds to watch. So in this sense, we actually had two desserts.

Read more about the best hotels and resorts in Japan in Travelife Magazine.

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It was our last night in Israel, living a #Travelife, and we were set to paint the town red by having dinner at Yaffo Tel Aviv, one of the best restaurants in Tel Aviv, Israel.

We’d driven from the Crammim Resort & Spa just in the hills outside Jerusalem, considered among Israel’s best R&R destinations, where we’d enjoyed three days of spa and relaxation.

I’ve been to almost every top restaurant in Israel, and Yaffo Tel Aviv is still one of my favorite restaurants for many reasons.

HOLIDAY IN ISRAEL

It was difficult to leave this beautiful country of Israel, of course, especially after such a wonderful holiday in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Unfortunately, reality awaited in the form of jobs and responsibilities, so we were set to fly out of Israel the following evening.

So for our last dinner, I put on my favorite black dress and we booked a table at Yaffo Tel Aviv, reportedly the best restaurant in Tel Aviv. It was everything we wanted and more. It had stylish surroundings, a star chef in the kitchen, and a sommelier who brought us some rare finds. It also had hip but efficient waitstaff.

THE KITCHEN COUNTER OF YAFFO TEL AVIV

Initially we were given a table in the center of the room of Yaffo Tel Aviv, which offered an excellent view of the comings and goings around us. But then suddenly we were inspired to sit instead on bar stools and eat right on the stainless steel counters that bordered the open kitchen so we could watch Haim Cohen – perhaps Israel’s best-known chef – and his team in action.

MEMORIES OF A WONDERFUL MEAL

What a happy meal this was. We ordered and shared everything that caught our fancy, and downed these all with a lovely bottle of local red from a boutique winery in Israel that apparently grew its grapes on the rooftops of houses.

Fortunately, this wine that we chose simply because of its interesting provenance was delicious as well. Then the long-awaited rains of Israel started dropping in regular tiny beats just as soon as we had returned to our hotel, growing increasingly intense and aggressive with each minute.

RAIN IN ISRAEL

In all my visits to Israel, living a #Travelife, I’d never seen the rains pour in this manner. Soon, a lively shower had turned into a storm with strong gusts of wind blowing across the sands and waters, worthy more of a Pacific typhoon than a long-awaited rainy evening in Tel Aviv.

The rains continued all night and all the way into the morning as well, although we slept unbothered by the howling outside. Most appropriately, it was the last day of a wonderful holiday in Israel – 14 days of complete sunshine – and so it seemed that even the heavens were sad we were leaving.

VIEWS OF THE BEACH IN TEL AVIV

Interestingly, we were in the most ideal location in Tel Aviv to experience the ferocity of the rains. On a whim and an inspiration weeks before our arrival, you see, we had chosen a charming and well-rated contemporary boutique hotel with the best beachfront location in Tel Aviv, imagining that we would take a last long walk along the Tel Aviv promenade before heading to the airport. And I’d wanted a full-on view at all costs so we’d booked a room with a terrace that directly overlooked Tel Aviv’s famous beach and promenade.

BREAKFAST IN TEL AVIV

For what we got, the hotel room was quite pricey. So you might say that I indeed got what I wanted. Small but impeccably furnished and spotlessly clean, we were tight with my mountain of luggage but happy. At least until the early morning, when the winds blew open the French windows that led to the terrace overlooking the beach.

The winds dragged the room’s long curtains outside in some kind of mad dance while bringing so much water in. The rains made half of our closet of a room wet.

HAPPY LAST MEMORIES OF ISRAEL

This should’ve been a disaster, especially as there was no housekeeper on call to clean up the mess in this 10-room hotel in Tel Aviv. In fact, the only dry space on the bed was about the size of a towel.

But instead we laughed about it. That’s all we’d been doing in Israel, really. Then we arranged the remaining dry pillows into some kind of seating area. Instead of going back to sleep, we talked until morning, exchanging ideas and inspirations on where our next Travelife might take us.

The post Dinner to remember in Tel Aviv appeared first on TRAVELIFE Magazine.

This post is about our visit to the Machane Yehuda market in Jerusalem, one of the most famous food markets in Israel and a must-visit destination for foodies.

The Machane Yehuda is one of Jerusalem’s most authentic markets. It’s the best place to literally get a taste of Middle Eastern flavors and Middle Eastern life. It’s a very local market full of color, life, sounds, and, of course, tastes.

Many of the shops have been around for at least a hundred years, if not more. This is Jerusalem, after all, one of the oldest cities in the world.

I visited late in the afternoon, but the market was still alive with shopkeepers trying to sell off as much of their fresh foods as possible, and with locals buying ingredients for dinner — plus tourists like me snapping away at all the exotic and interesting foods on offer.

This market is literally eye candy for the adventurous foodie. And for Orthodox Jews, it’s seventh heaven as everything sold here is kosher. I even found some stalls selling the clothing worn by Orthodox Jews — including the white inner vests and the black caps.

Most people were very friendly, and I kept getting offered all kinds of food including nuts and fruits, and even cooked meals like little plates of rice topped with nuts and raisings.

“HAVE SOME…”

I was quite full from lunch and determined to keep to some kind of diet during my trip. But I couldn’t very well refuse all these offers coming at me as I walked through the market’s “street.”

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