Cooking class in Yangon

The hotel I stayed at had a nice breakfast buffet. To accommodate the tourists and business travelers from all over the world, there were all kinds of dishes, from scrambled egg and bacon to porridge and miso soup. Of course, I ignored these dishes and went straight to the Myanmar food section. There were two kinds of breakfast noodles, Mohinga and Ohn-no khaut swei, which is coconut based chicken noodle soup. It's very similar to Thai Khao soi and Malaysian Laksa. Very yummy! I topped it with fried garlic and shallots.  I had their mohinga also.,, By the way, there is no so-called onion in Myanmar. Locals call shallots "onions" instead because that's the closest thing they have.

   

 

After a big breakfast at the hotel, I went to one of the main events of this trip, cooking class!! The class started with a market tour. The market looked very local and lively. Again, the people were pretty shy but didn't seem to mind me taking pictures (I confirmed this first with the guide/cooking instructor).

 

Smaller banana, about 2/3 the size of what we have in the US.

 

Yellowish fish, does not particularly look appetizing...

I didn't see any "sea"food at the market. The instructor said Myanmar people usually eat fresh water fish/shell fish because all the "sea"foods caught at the sea port (Myanmar has pretty long coastline) are for export and taxed. If locals want "sea"foods, they have to pay the after-tax price. That's sad...

After the market tour, we stopped by at a nearby café. The instructor ordered mohinga. I was pretty stuffed from the huge breakfast at the hotel but didn't say anything because I didn't want to miss the opportunity to have another mohinga. It was pretty good but I like the super cheap mohinga that I had in Bagan the best so far.

 

Now, it's time for cooking. The class was held at an apartment that is both their office and kitchen. Including myself, there were three students. We had 5 dishes to make.

Base curry paste, they used non-spicy chili. I guess they went easy for us. I wish they didn't...

Salt and turmeric rubbed onto tofu. Turmeric is one of the key ingredients in Myanmar foods

Cleaned at the market. Interesting way to cut fish.... Very soft flesh.

First dish (condiments?) was tomato sauce with the curry paste. It was quite salty. I don't know whether this was by accident or deliberate. In general foods in Myanmar are pretty salty. Many local Asian dishes are much saltier than what we usually have in the US because it's meant to be eaten with steamed rice. So, probably this saltiness is the way it's supposed to be??

The second dish is a chopped veggie salad tossed with ground peanut sauce. This was one of my favorite dishes.

This is all time my favorite veggie, water spinach (which the instructor called 'water cress'). The stem part is hollow shaped. It has some distinctive crunchiness if cooked right. This is supposed to be a cheap green vegetable (almost like weeds) to those in some part of Asia. But this is somewhat exotic to me. Simply prepared with oil and garlic. Very good!

This is the most unique and tasty dish that we made. It is fish cake curry. The flesh from the weirdly cut fish is made into cakes with the curry paste we made earlier. Normally I would need some sort of binder to make fish cakes but the fish flesh was naturally sticky. So, I didn't need to add anything else. The sauce is made with the curry paste and tomato.

This is duck egg curry. The duck eggs look about the same size as chicken eggs but the yolk has more orange-ish bright color. It was a bit challenging not to break the egg yolk when I was stirring the skillet..

The instructor and her assistants/stuff are very nice. Very homey feeling. I had a very pleasant time here.


As soon as I finished the class, I headed to the airport to fly to Bangkok, Thailand. I'm planning to take another cooking class in Bangkok.


When I left Yangon in the afternoon, it was pretty warm. But when I arrived at Bangkok in the early evening, it was like a sauna.... It was still quite warm and very humid.... I managed to get to a restaurant that I checked out before I arrived at Bangkok. It wasn't very crowded and the server wasn't friendly at all. But the foods were very good.

Especially the first dish is something to remember for a long time! It is pomelo salad with pork, topped with mint leaves. Sweet, tangy and spicy, amazingly balanced flavor. While fried shallots on the top give it depth, the pomelo makes the entire dish light and very refreshing. I'm going to make this myself once I get home. I don't know if I can recreate the same flavor, though..

When the server asked "spicy?" I said yes, hoping he'd bring the authentic green curry. He did not disappoint me! It was very spicy but without losing the balance (some spicy foods are almost bitter...). Very strong basil taste. I don't know if the curry paste has logs of basil or the local basil is stronger than American grown Thai basil. Anyway, it was very good

I asked for Tom Yam Koon (clear shrimp soup). But it seems it's a bit creamy and I did taste coconut. But it's not as creamy as Tom Kha (coconut soup). I'm not sure if this is supposed to be Tom Yam or Tom Kha... Nonetheless, this is so good! It was pretty spicy to begin with. But as it sat, it kept getting spicier. All the heat extracted more capsicum... I couldn't finish the soup because it became a bit too spicy. Next time, I'll finish it as soon as possible!

Stir fried minced chicken with basil. It was pretty spicy but sweet also. Again, a very strong basil taste.

 

 

Thailand is very close to Myanmar and they share lots of same ingredients. However, the way they season foods is so different. Everything is stronger in Thailand. Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to see the difference at the cooking class.

Return to Yangon

I had some time to kill at the Bagan airport waiting for the flight back to Yangon. So I went to a nearby café that was recommended by the tour guide who dropped me off. There were no English signs even though it was a café by the airport (it's outside the gate, but within walking distance), and nobody spoke English either. All I asked for was coffee and Laphet Thoke. All the people I saw at the café were locals. Although I was a bit concerned about the hygiene, I was also excited by the opportunity. The Laphet Thoke I got was served in the salad style. The tea leaf in the salad was a bit slimy. I was a bit scared but this was supposed to be fermented tea leaf.... So, I went for it and it was pretty good. I've seen fresh chili on the side, but I've never seen tiny raw unpeeled garlic. What was I supposed to do with it?? It looked cute, though... 

 

 

 

When I arrived at Yangon, I had additional sightseeing without a tour guide. For dinner, I went to a Shan food restaurant. Shan food is from Shan state, which is northeast of Yangon. Another famous sightseeing spot in Myanmar, Inle Lake, is in Shan State. It seems Shan state has their own style of food. I should probably go there next time. Anyway, I found a Shan Food restaurant in Yangon so decided to give it a shot.

 

The restaurant looked pretty upscale compared to typical restaurants for locals. And yes, there were only non-locals in the restaurant. The price wasn't horrible for me, but I'm sure it's way too expensive for locals. This is the only restaurant I went to in Myanmar that included service charge in the final check. The dishes all tasted pretty good and I hope they were really authentic, not adjusted for tourists.

 

Sautéed green - I don't remember the name but the leaves were fuzzy.

Although mohinga is known as the most popular noodle dish in Myanmar, Shan state has quite a few noodle dishes in their own style. I asked the waitress which one is the most traditional and she chose this one. Compare to mohinga, the broth is much lighter. It looked a bit spicy but it wasn't at all. Anyway, most Myanmar foods are not very spicy. I think this is a chicken based broth. Pretty good.

I guess this is a side pickled green for the Shan noodle.

Pork cooked with banana blossoms

Myanmar version of Som Tom (Green papaya salad)

Chopped raw mushroom and other aromatics - I didn't expect it to be raw. It was very unique.

Complimentary sweet potato cake - it was very sweet. I wish it was a bit more moist...

Tomorrow, I'm going to take cooking class in Yangon and fly back to Bangkok afterward. I'm really looking forward to the cooking class!

Bagan - Day 2

Bagan has two districts, old and new. When old Bagan was designated as an archaeological site, most of the residents were moved to another area, which became new Bagan. My local guide is from the only village that remained in the old Bagan area. The second day of the tour started with a visit to his village. First, the market was filled with large amounts of fresh veggies and fruits. The people were rather shy, though.  

 

This is very typical scene in Myanmar. Young monks walk around the village in the morning and the residents donate food. Some donate rice and others donate curries. The monks are bringing the food back to the temple and share it with others. People in Myanmar are very religious and pay a great amount of respect even if the monks are very young.

One of the foods that I wanted to try in Myanmar was mohinga, a very popular fish based noodle soup. I heard I could get this anywhere in Myanmar. So I asked the guide to recommend a good place to have mohinga for dinner. He said mohinga is for breakfast. I didn't know..,, But he suggested a café where I could have mohinga anytime. It was very local looking café with no English signs. The person at the counter knew only a few words in English. First, he said "No food." It seems he thought I had come in to have dinner. As soon as I said "Mohinga," he said "OK" and brought this. So, here is my first mohinga in Myanmar. It's a semi-thick broth with rice noodle and fried shallots & garlic as toppings. It's a bit spicy, but not strongly seasoned like Thai or Indian food. It has a rather delicate flavor, the broth is probably made with catfish. It was very good, but the portion was rather small because this was supposed to be a snack. I still can't believe how much I paid for this. It was about $0.20....

So, after the mohinga, I went back to the restaurant that I went to the previous night and ordered 3 salads.

Seaweed salad

Citron Salad, very tangy

Pennywort salad. I really don't know what pennywort is... Some leafy greens and it was similar to the tamarind leaf salad that I had last night, only with bigger leaves

 

These were all good. But I still like the tamarind leaf salad the best. I'm flying back to Yangon tomorrow morning. I'm glad it's not super early flight..

Bagan - Day 1

Out of the 5 days spent in Myanmar, I decided to spend 2 days here, in Bagan, because of the amazing views and the more than 2,000 temples and pagodas. Also, I wanted to try foods in other areas because foods in a big city like Yangon can be less traditional.

After enjoying the fantastic views of Bagan, I went to a local restaurant that the guide recommended (after I assured him that I didn't want a touristy restaurant...). I was happy to see many local people and some monks at the restaurant.

There was no menu in this restaurant. They brought a bunch of small dishes. The portion was like a Korean restaurant's side dishes (banchan) but it included main dishes and different types of curries. Below are the pictures of each dishes. It's only $5 or so per person; an amazing deal...

Fried fish and roasted pork (pretty dry but tasty)

Braised chicken

Braised pork belly (some pieces are pure fat..)

 

Shallot and chili tossed with some paste (probably coarse sesame paste?)

Black bean paste

Chili

 

Tomato sauce

Stewed green beans

Some sort of squash

 

Cauliflower

 

 Bitter melon

 

Side veggies. The purple one is eggplant. It was my first time having raw eggplant. It was pretty sweet.

Complimentary soup, tasty but don't know what it was..

Laphet thoke (more traditional style of tea leaf salad - laphet thoke is served as tea snack in central Myanmar)

Dessert - Palm sugar and tamarind candy

 

After lunch, the guide brought me to the hotel because the afternoon was too warm for sightseeing. Around 4:00 I restarted the tour, then went to a restaurant nearby that the guide recommended. As soon as I was seated, the server brought peanuts. The guide had told me that Bagan is very dry unlike the rest of the Myanmar. So, the local specialty foods are peanuts and sesame. So, these must be the local peanuts.

Throughout the stay in Myanmar, I had this beer a lot. It's a typical lager, rather light. So, I was having this instead of water...

 

Most curries in Myanmar are pre-cooked. However, it seems this restaurant serves freshly cooked curries. The fish in the curry below was very moist and tender. Other fish curries were very dry. On the other hand, the black bean and pork curry (second picture) was rather dry...

 

 





 

There are two salads that I had: laphet thoke and tamarind leaf salad. Laphet thoke is the style that I would usually recognize as "tea leaf salad" at Burmese restaurants in the US. And this is a salad. The difference is this is a bit saltier. It seems local people eat this with white rice, that's why... The tamarind leaf salad was something to remember. First of all, this was my first time having fresh tamarind leaves and I don't think I can get them in the US. It was tossed in some creamy dressing. It tasted like mayonnaise but I think this was sesame paste. Very refreshing.

 

 

Again, the dessert was palm sugar and tamarind. This time, the tamarind was shaped into thin and small disks and wrapped by white paper. They were accompanied by cut watermelon.



 

 This is the end of day 1 in Bagan. I can't wait for the 2nd day!

Myanmar - Yangon

Finally, my next foodie trip!

After a long layover in Tokyo, Japan and an overnight stay in Bangkok, Thailand, I'm finally in Yangon, Myanmar. The recent Burmese food boom brought me over here.

My first meal in Myanmar is a cafeteria style lunch. Tons of food inside & out. I was a bit scared of trying the food outside the restaurant although it looked very good....

Here are the dishes inside the restaurant. At least 15 kinds of curry/stew. Great view...

This is a complimentary boiled veggie tray. I had never seen some of the veggies. The dipping sauce in the center is fish paste and chili. It's quite salty but very yummy.

 

 

Ground chicken with lemongrass stick

                                       

Fish Curry

Beef Curry

Pork and bamboo shoot curry

Mutton Curry - not gamey at all

 

Complimentary dessert - probably some sort of rice cake topped with shredded coconut. Like most  Asian desserts, it wasn't very sweet... I wish it was a bit sweeter.

 

 

The dinner was at a big boat on the lake. It was arranged by the tour guide. As I expected, the foods were selected to please various tourists so that there were very few Myanmar (Burmese) foods to choose from. Here's one I was fond of. Very simple yet unique. I liked it a lot!

Crispy rice/tapioca flour crepe with palm sugar syrup and shredded coconut inside.

Tomorrow, I'm leaving for Bagan, early in the morning. I have to get up at 4:00....