New Delhi, Nov. 21 -- When outsiders talk about Bhutan, there's praise aplenty-blue skies, green vales and cliff-hanging monasteries. But the good words rarely seem to extend to its food. The superlatives suddenly switch to unapproving adverbs, the food of the "happiest, most beautiful land" is met with "too spicy, too cheesy, too limited". Luckily for me, Royal Enfield's recent 10-day Tour of Bhutan was an opportunity to journey beyond tourist hot spots and explore Bhutan's buckwheat noodles, puta.

While the name is a head-turner for a Spanish-speaker like myself (because it is a pejorative), my curiosity was fuelled by its lore: a delicacy eaten on Bhutan's day of nine evils to ward off the spirits by devouring what look like "bowls fu...