back in 1995 I was in Tibet with two Frenchmen laying fiber-optic lines across the steppes.
Spies probably
We spoke about food.
A lot, because Tibetan cuisine lacked ‘je ne sais quoi’; rancid butter tea, hairy yak meat, and crunchy grilled buckwheat or tsampa. Day after day. Bleech.
We lived on cheap Chinese beer and argued about the best meal in the world. Lobsters at Lincolnville, moules frites at Cannes, and pig’s feet in Les Halles. Lhasa was removed from the sea by thousands of miles and we agreed to deep-6 5-star cookeries. Keep it simple. It came down to baguette, pate, and sour pickles versus pizza. Pizza won hands down and the three of us drove over the Himalayas to Kathmandu. According to backpackers a pizza shop had opened not far from the Yak and Yeti Hotel. The only pizza this side of Thailand.
Two days of hard road.
There was a pizza shop.
We ordered a pizza each.
They sucked big time, but were better than tsampas
For dessert we ate apple pie from Kegbeni orchards in the shadow of Dalghiri.
Nothing better and no one would ever argue the opposite.