Myanmar
VIRTUALTOUR
| 1. Yangon | 7. MT Popa |
| 2. Mandalay | 8. Naga |
| 3. Bagan | 9. Ngapali Beach |
| 4. Inle | 10. Ngwe Saung Beach |
| 5. Mingun | 11. Pyin Oo Lwin |
| 6. Mrauk U | 12. Taunggyi |
MYANMAR FOOD
Myanmar food will be a little difficult to describe. Since the neighboring countries are mainly Thailand, China and India, the food existence in Myanmar is also a combination of these tastes. Myanmar food may be ranked between Chinese and Thai food. Let's say Myanmar food is a bit richer than Chinese food, and less spicy than Thai food, and not as hot as Indian food. Many, but not most, Myanmar dishes are noodles. Myanmar is a rice growing country, so rice and other rice products become the main food for the country. Both rice and wheat noodles are common. Neither eating beef nor pork is forbidden. However it is not forbidden by Buddhism, some do avoid eating beef. Some people are vegetarians.
What to Eat?
Mohingar (Fish soup & vermicelli)
Myanmar Famous Mohingar
Pundits say that the world is at the dawn of a New Golden Age of travel. Growing affluence and leisure of the middle class not only in Europe but also in Asia, combined to spur the travel itch, thus opening further new frontiers for travel.
Jet-set tourists, tired of the familiar venues, stereotyped bland food, tend to look for something out-of-the way, something mystique and magical, somewhere off the beaten track, quiet paradises so far seldomly frequented, offering some monetary change of perspective. The search is ahead to discover the unexpected, and enjoy in ecstasy the unfolding panorama of a new experience.
Such is our land that has so much to offer in this dawn of tourism, endless stretch of green forests, a rural community of simple people, exotic sights, and exotic food to excite the inquiring palate.
The itinerary of a visiting traveller to Myanmar will never be deemed complete if he or she has not tested the ubiquitous Mohingar or Latphet (pickled tea leaves) or sweetmeats to satisfy the sweet tooth, to name but some of the commonly known delectable delicacies Myanmar has to offer. And that is the theme of this article.
Mohingar is typically synonymous with Myanmar as is pizza to Italy, hot-dog to USA, tea to the British, sukiyaki to the Japanese, pau to the Chinese and chapati to the Indians. Verily it is an all-time favorite, from breakfast, through lunch to high teatime and even stretching to supper. You can find it everywhere, in reputable food centres, in markets, school canteens, pavement stalls. Itinerant sellers traverse through streets in small push carts, or balanced on the head in a basket by the womenfolk.
Mohingar is indeed Myanmar's fastfood because it can be relished instantly without much ado pleasing and tasty. Its food value is rich in protein carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals etc. Its recipe is also simple, easy to prepare with ingredients within reach of every budget both in ascending or descending order.
A general run-of-the-mill recipe will include the following ingredients: rice noodles, fish (fresh water or marine, ) fish or prawn sause, a small measure of salted fish, lemon grass, tender banana stems, ginger, garlic, pepper, onion, turmeric powder, rice flour, dahl (Indian bean) powder, dried chilli powder, cooking oil.
The method of cooking the broth differs with each region and taste of the locality. This fish broth is taken with rice noodles and only the such composition fittingly earns the name Mohingar. The rice noodles to go with mohingar is prepared by a special process, and carry a whiff of mild fermentation. Fresh slabs of noodles are also available, which has to be sliced to cater to individual demands.
Laying a mohingar table calls for elaborate preparation. The cooked broth is put in shining aluminum or steel receptacle and placed on open fire to keep it boiling because mohingar is served steaming hot to bring forth the correct flavour and taste. And mohingar is taken with other accompanying side dishes to make it a feast fit for a king, for in a market economy customer is king, naturally. Thus on the table are spread colourful arrays of food adornments such as fried sliced gourd with tempura (a favourite with Myanmars as french fries are to the Westerners), fried onions, fried fish cakes sliced to size, sliced hard-boiled eggs etc. Alongside with these dishes are laid a dish of dried chilli for those who like it hot, slices of fresh lemon to squeeze into the preparation for those who like the sweet-and-sour flavour, chopped green coriander leaves. All these ingredients are mixed into the piece de resistance and alors, there's none equal to this exciting delicacy of pure Myanmar origin.
Each region, each town, even each reputable shop has its own secret recipe to make it distinct and attract clients. some add coconut milk to heighten aroma and flavour, but such preparation are frowned upon by the senior clients as it adversely tend to raise blood pressure to dizzy heights. The most common species of fresh-water fish that go into Mohingar broth are carp, catfish, butterfish etc to name some.
The monhingar along the coastal regions use marine fish. Deltaic towns in the numerous lakes called 'inns' meaning large expanse of water catchment where fish breed. The broth is prepared with a liberal mix of fish fresh from the latest catch. In Upper Myanmar region to the north, customers prefer thick broth and so it is an overtone of dahl flour.
The Rakhine Mohingar is also famours for its distinct blend. It includes a very liberal mix of hot chiller pepper, which literally burns your tongue and palate if you are caught unawares. So Rakhine Mohingar is popularly known by the euphemism "Hot palate, hot tongue concoction". ( Aap- lYap )
So, this, in essence is the gourmet's delectable delight, from the sophisticated to the plebian, from the high-and-mighty to the humble man-in-the-street, Myanmar's Mohingar, typicaly native, equal to none.
Wheat Noodle in Coconut Chicken Soup
Local Name: (Ohno Kaukswe)
Ingredients:
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Instructions:
| 1. | Chop chicken. |
| 2. | Boil chicken and chicken bones 2 quarts of water |
| 3. | Add fish sauce and boil for 15 minutes |
| 4. | Drain out soup to a container, remaining boiled chicken. Throw away chicken bones. |
| 5. | Add oil, salt, chilly powder and fry for 5 minutes |
| 6. | Add coconut milk and pea powder. |
| 7. | Remix with the chicken soup |
| 8. | Add 2 more quarts of hot water |
| 9. | Add 1/2 lb of quartered onions to soup |
| 10. | Boil for 15 minutes in low heat |
| 11. | In each small plates, prepare these on table: |
| - Chilly powder | |
| - Boil egg and remove shell. Slice. | |
| - Thinly slice 1/2 lb of onion, wash in water. Drain water. | |
| - Fry dried thick rice noodle | |
| 12. | Serve noodle and soup in separate bowls. |
Shan Soaked Noodles
Myanmar offers a variety of noodle dishes: friend noodles, noodles in broth, noodles in starch soup, coconut milk noodles Chinese Muslim style and noodle salad. But an indigenous dish of noodles is ganing in popularity. It is Shan "soaked noodles" which come either in the wet type or dried.
The Shan noodle base is the common wetland rice or the more glutinous Shan variety. The rice is steamed and kneaded when cooked. T he dough is then passed through rollers. The flattened dough then goes through a cutting machine to create noodle strands. The strands are gathered in skeins. The skeins are sold in the wet stage or are air-dried. The dried version is convenient for the home.
A skein of Shan noodles serves four persons. If the noodles are made of hard rice they should be soaked in water for about four hours. They should then be dipped in hot water and retrieved with a sieve before serving.
The soaked noodles may be eaten with meatless Shan style garnish, Myanmar style curry or Chinese style steamed duck.
The following is a recipe for the Shan style garnish.
Steps to cook
Heat the water to boil. Put ill tomatoes and continue boling for 5 minutes and let cool. Remove skin and seeds and mash the tomatoes. Set aside the liquid.
Heat oil and fry pounded ginger root and garlic. Add shrimp paste and the spices on the fire. Add the tomatoes and the set aside liquid. Bring to boil.
Serve the Shan soaked noodles in the soup.
Fried bean curd, pickled pork, "nampong" (fried calfhide) and Shan pickles may be served as side dishes.
Pickled Tea Leaves (or) Laphet
Taking tea usually without milk and sugar is the custom in the Shan State, as it is through out the Union of Myanmar because everyone, young or elderly, male or female, lay or monk, drinks tea usually in the traditional way but rarely in a modern way mixing it with milk and sugar. Tea is served at every social or religious ceremony or function. In every household there is at least one member of the family who likes to have a cup of plain tea as soon as she or he gets up from bed. The first duty of the house wife when she gets up is to boil water and prepare a pot of tea, not only for the grandfather, grandmother, father or husband, but for herself and her children. Guests, near and far whoever comes for a visit is offered a cup of plain tea. It has become customary for everyone in the Shan State to give tea as gifts to visitors either in dried leaves or in pickled state.
Tea shops are crowded with people young and old alike. Holding a cup of plain tea and slowly sipping it, is quite refreshing. People would do their business well at the tea shops by the road side. Tea serves many purposes -social, economic and religious. Nobody can run away from tea. Tea has become a national drink and tea drinkers always say. I don ' t drink water the whole day. But I take plain tea instead, it is safer and is good for my heath."
Where does the tea come from? Who plants the tea ? How is the tea made into drink? And how is tea consumed?
The chief crop of cultivation among the Palaung is tea. The tea tree or tea-shrub is indigenous and grows wild all over the hills, but the cropping is closely associated with Tawngpang. But tea is abundant in places like Mong Long, Mong Mit, Mong Khe, Panglong and in Petkang areas of Keng Tung State. This shrub likes a high latitude, shade and dampness. Tawngpang is the most suitable place for such conditions. The tea is made in two forms: one, Neng Yam or wet or pickled tea, and the other dry tea. One needs skills and experience for picking, drying, curing of tea leaves. The leaves are steamed in a wooden strainer with a perforated bamboo bottom, which is placed over a large cauldron of boiling water. It is steamed for a few minutes just to moisten and soften the leaves, so that they can be easily and quickly rolled with the fingers on a met while another lot is being steamed. These steamed and rolled leaves are spread out on the screen resulting in dry tea.
The picking seasons for the tea are: May to June, July to August, September to October and November, each of which has its name. The first picking is always the best, and it is called Shwepyi(Golden Land).
The making of the pickled variety is more complicated. The steamed leaves are heaped together in a pulp mass and thrown into basket and left until the next day. The baskets are then put into pits in the ground and covered with heavy weights placed on top of each. Inspection is often made to see how fermentation is progressing and sometimes there is re-steaming.
Palaungs are the only tea growers who produce the "pickled tea" and some call it "salad tea". The Palaung tea plantations are on steep hill-sides. It takes three years to get a crop, and after ten years;; or more the plants weaken and the output is poor.
Much of the dry tea goes to different parts of Myanmar and some to Yunnan across the border. Pickled tea is transported down to Mandalay and Yangon for general distributifn. Myanmar people like pickled tea more than anyone else and it has become a delicacy for them and is eaten mixed with a little oil, salt, garlic and asafoetida and topped off with sesame seeds.
The palaungs there would not be much tea for home consumption and the tea drinking culture become could possibly elapse. Therefore tea cultivation should be encouraged and research on it should be made for better production and better preservation, so that good quality would be available not only for domestic consumption but also for export. Food technology should also be applied to make tea not only as a beverage but as an item of nutritious food in the future
A Special Thingyan Meal
This special menu is from the Mon State, and is served only during the period of ¡ÈThingyan,¡É the Myanmar Water Festival that ushers in the Myanmar New Year. It consists of specially prepared rice, crisply fried shreds of dried fish with a generous sprinkling of fried onions and a salad of green mangoes. The Mon people still adhere to this tradition of ¡ÈThingyan Rice¡É as it is called to this day. It is a novel and quaint way of cooking rice and I wish to share the recipe with our readers. To cook the rice
Wash rice thoroughly, put in pot, fill with water and put on stove. When the water boils and the rice is cooked, drain the starchy water. Put in more water and repeat the process twice. This is to get rid of all the starch and to cook the rice till the grains become plump and flaky. Drain the rice for the last time and set aside to cool. ( Usually rice is boiled till cooked and the water is drained only once, after which, the rice minus water is put back on stove to steam it to the right consistency).
Build an open charcoal fire in a small stove. When the charcoal begins to smoulder put in sandalwood slivers and flakes of beeswax and immediately cover with a clean cooking pot set aside for the purpose. This is to infuse the pot with the aroma of the sandalwood and beeswax. When it is judged that the sandalwood and beeswax have burned out remove pot and immediately put in the cooked rice and pour drinking water to cover the rice. Some cover the pot with a cloth before putting in the rice so that the aroma of the sandalwood and beeswax will not escape. The rice is now ready to be served in individual bowls water and all. Some sprinkle a few buds of jasmine on the water for decorative purposes and to lend some added fragrance as well.
Accompanying dishes
Fried Dried Fish
Boil the dried fish till tender. Remove bones and lightly pound the meat with traditional mortar and pestle. Heat half the oil till cooked and put in garlic lightly crushed; when garlic turns slightly brown, put in pounded dried fish and fry till golden. Slice 8 onions and fry till crisp. Leave half the fried onions for the mango salad and dress the fried fish with crisp golden onions.
Mango Salad
Peel and grate the mangoes and wash and drain. Slice raw onions and green chilis. Put in a bowl the grated mangoes, sliced onions, roasted sesame and pounded dried prawns, sprinkle fish sauce (to taste) and mix thoroughly. Put the lot in a serving dish and top with crisp fried onions.
The Thingyan meal, served usually for lunch or even later when the temperature is soaring, is a heart-cooling meal. The rice is fragrant, the water slakes thirst and the fried fish and mango salad lends a sharpness to wet the appetite.
"3-5 servings"
This unit of measurement was probably used with the introduction of condensed milk tins into Myanmar with the coming of the British. But I am not aware of why it came to be adopted. It has now become an accepted unit of measurement.
Where to Stay in Yangon
Luxury Hotels Hotel Yangon
| Address: | 91/93, Corner of Pyay Road and Kabar Aye Pagoda Road, 8th Mile Junction, Mayangone Township, Yangon, Myanmar. |
| Tel: | (+95-1) 667708, 667688 |
| Fax: | (+95-1) 667752 |
| Email: | hotelyangon@hotelyangon.com.mm |
| Website: | www.hotel-yangon.net www.myanmartravelinformation.com/hotel-yangon |
1. Sedona Hotel
No. 1 Kaba Aye Pagoda Road, Yankin Township,
Yangon, Myanmar.
Tel: (+95-1) 666900
Fax: (+95-1) 666911
2. Traders Hotel
#223 Sule Pagoda Road, G.P.O. Box 888,
Yangon, Myanmar.
Tel: (+95-1) 242828
Fax: (+95-1) 242800
3. Hotel Nikko Royal Lake
40, Natmauk Road, Tamwe Township, Yangon
Union of Myanmar
Tel: (+95-1) 544500
Fax: (+95-1) 544400
4. Kandawgyi Palace Hotel
KanYeikTha Road, Yangon, Myanmar
Tel: (95-1) 249 255-9, 242 613-21
Fax: (95-1) 242 776, 256 184
33 Alan PyaPhaya Road, Dagon Township
Yangon, Myanmar
Tel: (95-1) 250 388 Fax: (95-1) 252 478
6.The Strand Hotel
No.92, Strand Road, Yangon
Tel: (95-1) 243 377 Fax: (95-1) 289 880
Moderate Hotels
Central Hotel
| Address: | No, 335-357, BogyokeAung San Rd., Pabedan Township, Yangon, Myanmar. |
| Tel: | (+95-1) 241001~241020 (Line 20) |
| Fax: | (+95-1) 248003 |
| Email: | central.ygn@mptmail.net.mm |
| Website: | www.centralhotelyangon.com www.myanmartravelinformation.com/centralhotel |
MiCasa Hotel Apartments
| Address: | No.17, Kaba Aye Pagoda Road, Yankin Township, Yangon, Myanmar. |
| Tel: | (+95-1) 650933 |
| Fax: | (+95-1) 650960 |
| Email: | bc.micasa@mptmail.net.mm |
| Website: | www.myanmar.micasahotel.com www.myanmartravelinformation.com/micasa |
Economy Hotels
Mother Land Inn - 2
| Address: | No 433, Lower Pazundaung Road, Yangon, Myanmar. |
| Tel: | (+95-1) 291343, 290348 |
| Email: | mli2@myanmar.com.mm |
| Website: | www.myanmarmotherlandinn.com www.myanmartravelinformation.com/motherlandinn2 |
Ocean Pearl Inn
| Address: | No. 215, Botataung Pagoda Road, Pazundaung Township, Yangon, Myanmar. |
| Tel: | (+95-1) 297007, 297329 |
| Fax: | (+95-1) 297007, 297329 |
| Email: | oceanpel@myanmar.com.mm |
| Website: | www.oceanpearlinn.com www.myanmartravelinformation.com/oceanpearlinn |
City Star Hotel
| Address: | No. 169/171, MahaBandoola Garden St. Kyautada Township, Yangon, Myanmar. |
| Tel: | (+95-1) 370922 (pilot line), 370919, 370920, 370921, 370923, 370924, 250291, 245365 |
| Fax: | (+95-1) 381128 |
| Email: | shinetrading@myanmar.com.mm |
| Website: | www.citystarhotel.com www.myanmartravelinformation.com/citystarhotel |
Hotel Halpin
| Address: | 89 A, Corner of Pyay Road & PyidaungsuYeiktha Road Dagon Township, Yangon, Myanmar. |
| Tel: | (+95-1) 221943, 226694, 226695, 227538, 227304 |
| Fax: | (+95-1) 227223 |
| Email: | halpin@myanmar.com.mm |
| Website: | www.hotelhalpin.com www.myanmartravelinformation.com/hotelhalpin |