lonely-planet-myanmar-burma-11-edition

EATING IN MYANMAR (BURMA)

WHERE TO EAT & DRINK

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Where To Eat & Drink
Myanmar has three dining/drinking scenarios: what’s in Yangon (includ-
ing many expat-oriented, high-end choices); what’s in other oft-visited
places, including Mandalay, Bagan, Inle Lake and Ngapali Beach (many
traveller-oriented menus, with Thai and pizza); and everywhere else.
Food can be quite cheap (from K1200 or K2000 for a full stomach) if you
stick to roadside restaurants with their curry-fi lled pots or pick-and-point
rice dishes. It’s worth mentioning that these restaurants, though cheap,
don’t always meet international hygiene standards. That said, you’re usu-
ally looking at K3000 to K5000 for a meal. In many mid-sized towns, there
are basic stands and maybe a Chinese restaurant or two – and that’s it.
Listings in this book are divided into three price brackets:budget
($), meal less than $3 (about K2550);midrange ($$), $3 to $15 (about
K2550 to K12, 750 ); and top end ($$$), more than $15 (about K12, 750 ).

Quick Eats
The bulk of Myanmar eateries are basic, with concrete fl oors, a wide-open
front for ventilation and often a menu in English. Burmese eateries are
busiest (and many say freshest) at lunch. No menus are necessary at most;
just go to the line of curries and point to what you want. A meal comes
with a tableful of condiments, all of which are automatically refi lled once
you fi nish them. An all-you-can-eat meal can start at as little as K1500.
Another abundant option is the (usually) hole-in-the-wall Indian (often
Muslim) curry shop, which sometimes serves vegie dishes only and no beer.
Like most Southeast Asians, the people of Myanmar are great grab-
and-go snackers. Stands at night markets, selling a host of sweets and
barbecued meals and noodles, get going around 5pm to 8pm or later.
Generally you can get some fried noodles, a few pieces of pork, or sticky
rice wrapped in banana leaf for a few hundred kyat.

Restaurants
Most restaurants keep long hours daily, usually from 7am to 9pm or until
the last diner wants to stumble out, their belly full of curry or beer.
Chinese restaurants are found in most towns and most have similar
sprawling menus, with as many as 50 rice or noodle and chicken, pork,
lamb, fi sh, beef or vegetable dishes, usually without prices indicated. Vegie
dishes start at around K800 or K1000; meat dishes about K1200 or K1500.
More upmarket restaurants – some serving a mix of Asian foods, oth-
ers specialising in one food type, such as pizza or Thai – can be found in
Bagan, Mandalay, Inle Lake and especially Yangon. Also, most top-end
hotels off er plusher eating places, sometimes set around the pool. Such
comfort is rarer to come by off the beaten track.

TODDY

Throughout central Myanmar and the delta, t’àn ye (or htan ye; palm juice) or toddy

is the farmer’s choice of alcoholic beverage. T’àn ye is tapped from the top of a toddy

palm, the same tree – and the same sap – that produces jaggery (palm sugar). The juice

is sweet and nonalcoholic in the morning, but by midafternoon it ferments naturally into

a weak, beerlike strength. By the next day it will have turned. The milky, viscous liquid

has a nutty aroma and a slightly sour fl avour that fades quickly.

Villages in some areas have their own thatched-roof toddy bars, where the locals

meet and drink pots of fermented toddy. The toddy is sold in the same roughly engraved

terracotta pots the juice is collected in, and drunk from coconut half-shells set on small

bamboo pedestals. Some toddy bars also sell t’àn-ayeq (toddy liquor, also called jaggery

liquor), a much stronger, distilled form of toddy sap.

Myanmar’s fruit

offerings vary by

region and sea-

son. Don’t miss

Pyin Oo Lwin’s

strawberries and

Bago’s pineap-

ples. Mango is

best from March

to July; jackfruit

from June to

October.

FRUIT