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Dining

One of the food specialties of the Nyingchi region is an unusual species of pygmy pig, and though smaller in size has a fine flavor, with the meat being made into sausages or roasted as in a Cantonese style. Organically reared to provide more nutrition, the pork dishes are served in restaurants of Bayi Town and in most of the counties as well. Lunang Village, boasting a tremendous tree farm 80km (50 miles) east of Bayi Town, is famed for its natural beauty, as well as two impressively delicious dishes: Shi Guo Ji Tang (chicken soapstone pot) and Sha Guo Dou Fu (bean curd clay pot). The soup, made of local chickens and a wild palm-like ginseng, has been cooked in a unique soapstone pot (one of the local products of the Luopa people with good performance in heat preservation) for more than two hours before served on table, hence its appetizing flavor. The bean curd, cooked with meat in an earthenware pot, is extraordinarily tender and palatable.   In the meanwhile, the Menpa and the Luopa peoples in the Great Canyon of the Yarlung Tsangpo River carry on their own unique dietary customs which always arouse great interest from outsiders. In Pemako, which is to the most part inhabited by the Menpa and Luopa peoples, food staples are mainly corn, rice, buckwheat and jizhuagu (a kind of tropical millet with the ears resembling chicken feet). Except for being ground into flour to make porridge and cakes, the grains, especially corn and jizhuagu, are the raw ingredients to make a special flavored local wine. Moreover, a visitor to a Luopa family residence may well receive a feast of loir, a unique species that lives in the Great Canyon area. Either roasted or cooked, the loir feast is considered a most sincere greeting to guests and exclusively enjoyed during festivals by locals.   Restaurants which serve traditional Tibetan food, Sichuan and Guangdong Cuisines can be found throughout Bayi Town and most of the counties.  
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