Guides
Food, drink and water on the road
Information as of 2026-09-21
Boiled mutton is the backbone of the countryside diet. A herding family may eat little else, seasoned with salt alone, because the climate does not support much vegetable growing and even flour can be scarce.
Restaurant and canteen menus across the country revolve around three dishes: steamed meat dumplings called buuz, deep-fried meat pasties called khuushuur, and fried noodles with meat called tsuivan.
A set of six buuz usually costs 1,200-2,000 MNT; a serving of tsuivan about 2,000-4,000 MNT (roughly 0.35-1.10 USD)
Two festive cooking methods are worth arranging through a guide in summer: khorkhog, mutton cooked with fire-heated stones in a sealed kettle, and boodog, a goat or marmot cooked inside its own skin with hot stones.
A boodog arranged with a herder costs roughly 15,000-20,000 MNT; cooking takes 30-60 minutes
On the road between towns the only place to eat is often a guanz, a roadside ger canteen whose menu may be limited to tsuivan noodles and salted milk tea.
Salted milk tea is the default drink and the first thing put in front of a guest entering a ger, together with a bowl of dried snacks. Cold drinks essentially do not exist in the countryside.
Airag, fermented mare's milk, is the national drink and a summer seasonal one. Its alcohol content is below beer's but noticeable, and first-time drinkers often get diarrhoea as the gut adjusts.
Alcohol content lower than beer; sold seasonally at Gandantegchinlen Monastery and the West Market in Ulaanbaatar
Ulaanbaatar is effectively the only place in the country where a vegetarian can find food without arranging it in advance; elsewhere tour agents can usually organise vegetarian meals given enough notice.
Vegetarians should treat menu translations sceptically. A dish listed as vegetable soup is typically meat soup with one vegetable in it.
Islam is the third-largest religious identification in Mongolia and is concentrated among ethnic Kazakhs, who are the majority in the western province of Bayan-Olgii. Halal food is therefore realistic in Bayan-Olgii and available in Ulaanbaatar, but should not be assumed anywhere else.
Islam 3.2% of the population; Kazakhs about 5% of the population, concentrated in Bayan-Olgii, Uvs and Khovd
Tap water is not safe to drink anywhere in Mongolia, and untreated fresh water from rivers and lakes carries a risk of leptospirosis and other infections.
Health authorities advise avoiding contaminated food and water and untreated fresh water, and specifically warn against unpasteurised dairy products, which can transmit tick-borne encephalitis as well as other infections.
Read more
- Carry a filter bottle or purification tablets rather than buying a new plastic bottle at every stop; resupply points are far apart and waste disposal in the countryside is poor.
- Tell your operator about vegetarian, halal or allergy needs at booking time, not on arrival; ingredients cannot be sourced on the steppe.
- Pack instant noodles, nuts and dried fruit as a personal backup for the days when the only guanz is closed.
- Accept the bowl of milk tea you are handed even if you only sip it; refusing outright reads as an insult.
- Treat your first airag as a taste, not a glass, and have it early in the trip rather than the night before a long drive.