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What is Burmese Cuisine? What Myanmar Foods Should I Try?

Main Dishes (Typical Burmese Cuisine)

With all the fusion in Burmese cuisine it’s hard to call many dishes truly Burmese. These are the ones that we think typify the country.

 

Burmese Cuisine:  DishesB_Boiled Noodles with crispy onion

 Street Noodles (with crispy onion)

You will find many variations of noodles both on the street or in restaurants. Served both cold and warm with differing amounts of oil poured on top, sometimes with a little chicken, or for this dish in Yangon, with deep fried crispy onions for crunch! Only 300 kyat (35 cents)

 

Burmese Cuisine:  DishesB_Burmese Curry

Burmese Curry (Set Meal)

 Indian influenced but with a local distinction in flavour, you choose your main meat dish and then a selection of extras are included to compliment the rice. You don’t get much of a choice of what they bring, so just sit down and cross your fingers – normally its awesome. Burmese curry restaurants are street-side and all over the place (A selection of big pots full of curry out the front), spot something you like and point. Expect to pay at least 1200 kyat for a set meal.

 

Burmese Cuisine:  DishesB_Meshay Burmese Cuisine: DishesB_Meshay2

Meeshay (Cold Noodles)

Rice noodles mixed with sauce – which varies but often includes tomato or peanut. A Shan dish, served cold for about 300kyat.

 

Burmese Cuisine: DishesB_Pork Hot Pot

Pig Organs Hotpot

Seems to be all over the place in Burma, although this would strictly speaking be a Chinese dish, its so prolific that we would say it is an adopted Burmese dish!

Read more about this dish and watch the video

Burmese Cuisine: DishesB_Shan Noodle (tomato)DishesB_Tofu Shan Noodle Shan Noodles (Sticky or not)

With Chicken (top picture) with Tofu (Second Picture). You can’t escape the Shan noodle in Shan State (Eastern Myanmar), fortunately, its normally very tasty and generally priced between 400 & 700 kyat. Every vendor serves it slightly differently, accompaniments often include Tofu, Chicken, tomato, ground peanuts.

Myanmar Foods: dishesB_Tofu (fake meat)

Tofu with sauce

This is a soft tofu, once again a Chinese  influence found in Burma. The tofu itself is a little flavourless but once mixed up with the sauce the dish transforms. Cheap and tasty protein option and avoiding the deep fryer!

Myanmar Foods: Dishes_Fried Rice, Meatballs & Veg Broth

Rice with “Extras”

A quick note about “Extras” in Burma. There is absolutely no system on whether the extra bits and pieces that are put next to you when you order are “included” or “Extra”, and with a lack of english being spoken at street restaurants its sometimes hard to tell. Our general rule, if the food is costing less than 500 kyat, sauce is free, soup might be and meat certainly is NOT.

We ended up paying an extra 200kyat per meatball when we ate this meal… lesson learned. Fortunately they were tasty though!

We liked Myanmar so much we even wrote a book about it!!!

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