Myanmar: Must Try Foods you Need to Know

Ah, Myanmar, how I miss thee. I was sick for the majority of the country and also eating vegetarian (traveling with one) but I did have some of the best seafood of my life!

Veggie Soup:

As stated above, I was sick a lot of the month. I would feel bad especially at night so almost every day we would have veggie soup for dinner. The best soup we had was in Inle Lake. It was cheap, full of veggies, and super delicious! To make it even better, the people at the restaurant were some of the kindest we met in Myanmar – and there was free tea with your meal. If you are not already a hot tea with food convert, make the change today!

Indian:

We also ate a lot of indian food, it was a nice change and the food was always nutritious and delicious. However, it wasn’t the cheapest thing to eat. Myanmar borders India so it was easy to find super delicious options – plus easy for vegetarians.

Shan Noodles:

A “must-try” in Myanmar, shan noodles get their name from their origin: the eastern Shan state of Myanmar. Simple but delicious, it normally contains: boiled noodle, chicken curry, tomato paste, peanuts and spring onion.

Glass coconut noodles:

My vote for best meal in Myanmar, we actually had this on the rooftop bar of our hostel for SUPER cheap (one of the cheapest meals we had!). This bowl of deliciousness was simple – glass noodles, potato, and lots of thick, yummy curry. Still thinking about this meal.

Curry:

I have a gazillion photos of curry – it is super common in the country. One of the memorable ones I had was this coconut pineapple curry in Bagan. The curry was good but the circumstances were also crazy. We had narrowly escaped a monastery fire and stopped here to eat. As we sat down it started to POUR rain (the spirits working against the rain!). The staff looked so confused and they told us it was super uncommon for there to be rain. We are convinced this was the work of ~something~ who made it rain to stop the fire.

Seafood:

We spent a full week a five minute walk from the ocean, frequenting one restaurant for 99% of our meals. I had the best seafood curry of my life and came to love the place and the staff. When we left, they had thoughtfully prepared us a goodbye gift: bamboo candle holders. We were touched but not surprised as the hospitality of the Burmese people had been evident throughout our entire stay.

Tea Leaf Salad:

A classic I don’t have a picture of – oops! Super healthy and delicious, tea leaf salad is how it sounds. Toasted/pickled tea leaves make the base of the dish which is tossed with peanuts, sesame seeds, and fresh veggies.

Mohinga:

Because our hostels had breakfast included we only had mohinga, a common breakfast soup, once. Again, no picture, there were like three weeks of my life there were I just did not take pictures of anything. One has gotta unplug at times. Mohinga is a rice noodle and fish dish, with ingredients such as fish, rice noodles, fish sauce/paste, ginger, banana stem, lemongrass, onions, and garlic! Just like I am a tea convert during meals, I also love a soup for breakfast.

Candy:

At the end of meals, we were often given candy (people, we have no self control, don’t enable this addiction). The first thing we were given is called ‘jaggery’ – I had to google this weeks after eating it. It is a candy made from palm sugar and is so sweet it hurts your stomach if you eat too much. More often we had a different candy, made from tamarind. These were SO FREAKING GOOD. We often would clear the whole bowl they brought us (pretty sure most people eat like two). Andrea saw them laughing at us once for so thoroughly finishing the bowl. No regrets.

I am already in Singapore and am coming off a fabulous two weeks in Malaysia – where I LOVED the food but was pretty awful at photographing it. I am positive I will have a great experience in Indonesia as I will be traveling with my brother who is also always interested in finding the best meal.

T