Mongolia doesn't have much of a rep as far as food is concerned, and personally, I think this is rather unfair. Admittedly it's not sophisticated, but it's superb comfort food.

The place to eat it is not the ger camps, where the food was without exception good, but very much middle-of-the-road international. Instead, you need real restaurants or real homes.

The meat -- natural and pasture-raised -- was very tasty, and you can, of course, order big grill platters, as per the stereotype. But you don't have to. The big dumplings (buuz), the thicker, flat, fried dumplings (khuushuur), noodle soup, clear soup with a dumpling-wrapper lid, tsuivan (flour and water dough cut into strips and cooked with veggies), or "fried egg" (scrambled egg with vegetables) all contain meat, but in fairly small quantities. One of my favourites was wheat porridge into which stock and a little meat had been stirred. Really tasty.

Sometimes we were served with boortsog -- which are like little savoury doughnuts -- as a kind of put-you-on while the food was being prepared.



The best food of the trip came from the nomad families. It was summer, so dairy products were plentiful. The breakfasts were legendary (milk rice with raisins; superb yoghurt; crispy fried unleavened bread; and more of that wonderful half-butter-half-cream product that you are routinely offered by the herder families as soon you set foot through the door, along with perhaps some feta-like cheese, both served with bread).



We also got to try dried curds on one of these visits. These have the air of sour fudge about them. Nice. Our curds had their own cat, who kept the birds off while they were drying on the roof of the ger. (I'm not sure what the inverted teddy bear was doing...)





And we had a great Mongolian barbecue with one of our families. This involves heating up stones over the fire; placing them in a large pot along with shanks of meat, veggies, and squares of rolled-out dough; covering the whole arrangement with a weighted lid, and putting it back on the fire. The result is fantastically flavourful, tender meat.



I need to highlight the national staple that is milk tea (some menus actually call it "national milk tea"). It's light, because it's made from skim milk, it's served piping hot, and it's usually slightly salted. I loved it. Even better is "tea and dumplings". The first time I ordered this, I expected a cup of milk tea and a bowl of dumplings. But it's a bowl of milk tea with the dumplings IN it. Sounds strange, I know, but honestly, really good... Other noteworthy drinks include juices made of seabuckthorn, raisin, or blueberry, and of course a massive range of high-quality beers and vodkas.



Our one slightly disconcerting food experience was "gurgaldai". The picture looked good, and frankly the dish tasted reasonable: rich chunks of meat in a savoury wrapper that was perhaps just a little strong for my liking, but OK... Very filling. And the translation? "Cooked anus"... I'm not quite sure how it's prepared, and frankly I'm not sure I want to find out...

But I don't want to finish on a shock-horror stereotype, because Mongolian food was basically a delightful surprise. So I'll close with a picture of the world's biggest pot-set yoghurt...