Bhutanese Ema Datsi
“I ordered the dried beef with cheese and my sister ordered the chicken peppercorn dish.”
“Best momos I've ever had, not like the flavorless meatballs swimming around in a shell of grease from Jackson Heights.”
“I particularly enjoyed the ema datsi, the sauteed cauliflower, and puta buckwheat noodles.”
Bhutanese Ema Datsi
Takes Reservations: Yes
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Has TV: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$ Price range Under $10
7 reviews
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Here's something pretentious – before coming here, I hadn't eaten Bhutanese food since being in Bhutan. That was several years ago, where I managed to be on the border for just long enough to take in a couple meals of heavy pork, unavailable in India and slathered in a thick white gravy.
Bhutan seemed to be the Deep South of the Subcontinent, a sleepy kingdom with a colorful history.
Bhutan doesn't come up every day or even every year in conversation, so I didn't have much of a chance to ponder where this was a fair assessment of the Himalayan country before coming here on a Saturday evening. I arrived with a friend at 7 p.m. to find a completely empty restaurant. Maybe everyone else had forgotten about this place as well.
That turned out to be false, as a neighborhood crowd containing almost exclusively members of the diaspora filed in as our meal progressed. Entertainment was provided by the big screen TV on one wall, which screened a selection of talent show performances from a private high school on the outskirts of Thimphu.
My friend was a vegetarian and we each wanted to try our dishes, so I had to let the fried chicken and pork options passed. We had the titular dish, with huge shishito-like peppers, along with a runny cheese. An paneer appetizer took a different form of cheese with an interesting range of spices, while the veggie momo and Tibetan-style bread both ensured we left feeling full.
Himalayan food is not that hard to find in the States anymore, whether in upscale Tibetan places near Harvard Square to the second-story Nepali snack stalls just to the north in Jackson Heights. Ema Datsi shows that's there's definitely room for another the food of another little mountain kingdom on the New York dining scene.
So nice to be able to explore other cultures via food like this in queens. Everything was delicious but it's really all about the momos! I could eat dumplings and momos every day and never get tired of them.
Oh my goodness, this place is flipping amazing.
Came here this past Saturday night with my friend. The restaurant's decor is not much to write home about. There is a life-sized mannequin doll thing by the entrance of the door. Not sure if this is some sort of talisman to bring in good luck and business to the owner or to ward off bad spirits, but it did scare both my friend and I. After perusing their menu, we both decided that we ought to get mostly Bhutanese dishes as we've never had Bhutanese food before.
The results? The food was phenomenal. We had gotten an order of their cauliflower appetizer (called cauliflower dry), their mushroom shamo datsi dish, their puta (hehehe) buckwheat noodles, and an order of Tibetan-style thukpa. Everything was just out of this world tasty. The cauliflower dish was a lot like Indian-Chinese style gobi manchurian, except not as sweet. The mushroom cheese dish was rich without being too heavy, if that makes any sense, and also came with a very large side of red rice. The noodles were absolutely delicious: reminiscent of Japanese soba but paired with a mouth numbing spice combination. The thukpa was also served with a hearty broth and chewy noodle pieces. Oh, and we got this awesome hot sauce and a small side of chili peppers to add onto our dishes as we saw fit.
If I could compare this food to any other cuisine, I would say it's very similar to food from Nepal, northern India, Tibet, and western China. Makes sense, given Bhutan's proximity to all those other countries. I believe this place is also BYOB for the time being. Service was a little slow, but pretty attentive and very friendly. Not really sure if the neighborhood that this restaurant is in is considered to be Woodside or not, but if so, this is hands down my new favorite restaurant in Woodside.
Disappointed. Maybe cause we had set the bar too high based on all the glowing reviews. We don't drive down to JFK often but whenever we do, we normally go to a restaurant or two to make the most out of the hike. On this occasion of having to pick up family in the AM, we thought the additional hour and a half that we spent at a bar for brunch would be worth the dining experience. Turns out that they had an off day in the kitchen for whatever reason.
The Ema Datsi (a very spicy yak cheese and chilly stew and also the national dish) was very bland despite us insisting for the Bhutanese "homestyle" version at its fiery best. The Momos (Dumplings) that were served to us were a bit overdone and dry. More disappointing was the accompaniment sauce that appeared reconstituted. My sister in law chose Beef Thenthuk (hand pulled noodles) for the table. The noodles turned out starchy and flavorless swimming in a watery broth. The Tibetan Tea didn't taste anything like a good butter tea (Po Cha) in all its "soup like" goodness. The Tingmo was ok and so was the red rice.
We asked the reason for the lack of heat in the dishes and we got a response that it depends on the chillies and sometimes they are that way in the winter season. Whatever the case, we are not sold on paying a return visit given the generally poor execution on the dishes.
Firstly, don't be scared by the mannequin doll at their entrance! This is the only Bhutanese restaurant in NYC, and their food is really exotic and spicy. Try their outstanding ema fatso and buckwheat noodles and you won't get disappointed.
First time trying Bhutanese food and it definitely won't be my last! I had a wonderful dinner here on a Thursday evening – the place was rather empty with only one other group while we were there. Service was great – our friendly waiter gave us a brief explanation of their dishes and said he can adjust the spice to our taste.
We ordered the sooji fried tilapia, beef momos, thalis for each person in our group, mango lassi and butter tea. My group was not a fan of the butter tea but I loved it! It was hot, salty and rich – perfect for a cold winter evening. The sooji tilapia was really good – the sooji crust was very crispy while the inside of the fish was tender and flaky. The beef momos were extremely juicy and flavorful. I got the sha kam datsi thali and felt like it was a very generous amount of food for the price! Each component of the thali was very tasty. The cheese was surprisingly not heavy and combined with the chilies, it was an amazing dish. I would have licked my thali clean if I had more room in my stomach!
Overall, this is a truly amazing restaurant – definitely worth checking out!
Bhutanese Ema Datsi
NY: QN: Woodside
7:30pm Tuesday 17th May 2016
Four Stars
At this month's Private Gastronaut Dinner, we enjoyed Butter Tea, Blood Sausage, Chili and Cheese, Beef Tongue, Goat Tripe, and Pork Trotters. The Butter Tea tasted like Chai and Broth with a bit of salt. The Gyuma was filled with Blood and Ground Beef and fried to almost black color. The sausage was bit dry but after combining it with some hot sauce it was great. Ema Datsi is the Bhutan's National Dish. The Chili and Cheese was pretty weird but it was a very comforting dish. The cheese was unctuous and creamy. The peppers were white girl spicy. The Beef Tongue was salty, firm, and pretty tasty. The Goat Tripe was my favorite. The Golden honeycomb of the intestine wall was tender, smooth, and quite delicious. The Pig's feet were stewed had plenty of fat, tendons, and bone marrow. The Service was decent. The Plastic plate was not-unexpected. Overall, It was great to try Bhutanese Food.