“The hunters use clay so the heat is evenly and slowly distributed. It keeps the monkeys from devouring it, too,” says Zay Yar Min, owner of Vista Do Rio Kayan restaurant.
Native to the Mandalay region, Min spent two years researching and cooking with villagers in Kayah State. Soon after he returned to Myanmar in 2013, his wife returned from Loikaw with the city’s famous Kayah pork sausage. Min says Aung San Suu Kyi was often publicised eating ethnic food in public, encouraging citizens to diversify their palate.
“Her words were a driving force for us,” says Min. Because Kayan food did not exist in Yangon, he opened Vista Do Rio.
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A requisite in Kayan cuisine is andaliman, a flowering plant that is cousin of the tongue-numbing Sichuan pepper. It is crushed with Kayan chilli and pumpkin seeds in curries. As with other ethnic restaurants, Min’s menu tailors traditional Kayan food to the tastes of the Yangon customer.
His Kayah sausage has less fat and turmeric, and the kaung yae (rice wine) is sourced from two different villages for the perfect aromatic concoction that is slightly sweet, served cold.
Then there’s Kachin cuisine, known for its extreme use of chilli pepper, and, due to its proximity to the China border, overlaps with Chinese food in its flavours and ingredients. At Agape, the stand-out dish is spicy beef noodle soup with sticky noodles. The chewy noodles are drenched in rich bone broth flavoured with chilli and bean pastes, with tender pieces of beef and a sprinkling of greens, sesame seeds, mint and scallions. Young people favour this hole-in-the-wall for its cheap, simple menu.
Jasen Devu, who runs the shop, says their success is due to infusing the food with more “Chinese-ness”. Instead of tossing Kachin shat jam (rice salad) in a pot, for example, Agape’s version is more like fried rice.
“Myanmar people don’t always love traditional Kachin food. It is too spicy, has too much coriander leaf,” he says.
When Agape opened in 2012, there were only three Kachin restaurants in Yangon. Now, that number has tripled.
Just a few streets east, Jing Hpaw Myay is a popular spot that is more representative of Kachin cuisine. It serves si pa, a healthy stew of pumpkin leaves, wood ear mushrooms and pumpkin. Mushrooms are common in Kachin food, with the fungi foraged in northern Myanmar’s cool, mountainous regions. The restaurant’s spicy pounded beef salad is not to be missed, and it serves a mushroom version for vegetarians.
Also located in Kachin State are the Kokang, a Mandarin-speaking ethnic group that lives near Yunnan in China. Koe Kant Kou Fu, located at the Kandawgyi Nature Park, serves Kokang cuisine in a lush green setting. The food has influences from Yunnan cuisine, with the restaurant’s extensive menu featuring meats and fish in combination with bamboo, pea shoots, tofu, lotus roots, quince and sour pickled vegetables.
Those who are ethnically Wa live in a conflict-ridden, mountainous, unrecognised state within Shan State, very close to China. Two Wa sisters opened Root in 2017, a hip restaurant decorated with Wa fabrics and instruments.
Wa food is perhaps the spiciest of all of the cuisines, and it’s known for its moik: a cross between porridge and risotto made with a special red brown rice. Served with bits of either fennel, pumpkin or smoked beef tucked inside like Italian risotto, it pairs well with any of the grilled meats or mashed potato.
In addition to chilli, ginger is omnipresent in Wa cuisine and shows up in Root’s not-to-be-missed “Wa Tang Clan” cocktail.
It would be unfair to discuss ethnic food in Myanmar without including a traditional Burmese restaurant. Aung Thukha serves dozens of curries per day, all cooked in the morning – so be sure to arrive early.
Arranged behind glass windows, the curries, in vats, wait for customers to choose their favourites. The curries arrive at the table in small bowls with plates of steaming rice and raw vegetables with nga pi yay (fermented fish dipping sauce). Another waiter brings lacquered bowls of laphet (fermented tea leaf) and jaggery (palm sugar candy).
Family-run Aung Thukha has been around since 1986. When Thein Myint’s father, a truck driver, moved their family to Yangon, his boss took a special liking to his mother’s cooking and insisted she open a restaurant, even bought a bankrupt tea shop’s tables and chairs to get her started.
She refined her cooking with feedback from the truck driving crew. She used tamarind in fish dishes, learned several ways to make pork curry and cooked sour roselle leaves with bamboo shoots. Then, she hired workers from her village near Meiktila to cook the traditional way, with coals and wood.
For a more modern spin on Burmese food, stop by Rangoon Tea House. Alongside the creative Shan fish tacos and deep fried baos, other staple menu items are the salads (samosa, tea leaf and pennywort), birianis and laphet yay (tea with condensed milk).
Moving downtown to 35th Street, Mr. Sabuti is a tiny shack that serves Chin State’s best-known dish, sabuti. Made from dried corn that puffs up twice its size, and beef bone broth, the rest of the soup’s ingredients are actually add-ons: salt and a mix of chopped coriander leaf, ginger and green chilli. Because rice paddies cannot grow in Chin’s terrain, corn adds sustenance. Though there are many tribes in Chin, sabuti is the one dish that unites them all.
While tea shop versions of Shan noodles are ubiquitous, hunting down an authentic bowl with fresh tomato paste requires more effort. As well as really satisfying noodles, Nang Htike serves tofu nway, hin htoke (steamed rice flour in banana leaf) and fish rice. Their steamed fish with lime is a local favourite.
Chef Nan Thida says tomatoes are most important in southern Shan cooking, and prefers Shan red tomatoes for their soft texture – easier for turning into paste for curries. After 20 years of business, the secret to Nang Htike’s success is to “keep the food quality consistent, as you would eat it yourself at home,” says Thida.
In a country half surrounded by water, Myanmar’s coastal regions such as Rakhine and Mon are known for their access to fresh seafood. Both areas stress the importance of freshness in the cuisine.
The best place for Rakhine-style seafood in Yangon is Min Lan. From any of its eight locations, you can find mone ti: vermicelli noodles in a fishy broth made with yellow conger eel, fish paste, chilli pepper and garlic, in either soup or salad form.
Another popular dish is the spicy “fisherman’s curry”, named after the haul of prawns, crab, mussels, clams and fish straight from the sea. The restaurant chain is so busy that it uses 500 kilograms of small shrimp a day.
Seafood is also prominent in Mon’s spicy, sour cuisine. At Mawlamyine Swe, you can find traditional Mon soup made with the slimy fish known as bombay duck, fish and seafood salad with briny seaweed obtained from chef Thae Pine Oo’s village by the sea.
Myanmar’s diverse ethnic gastronomy is yet to be discovered by foodies seeking the next big trend. Luckily for us, these cuisines can be found without stepping foot outside Yangon.
Vista Do Rio Kayan Restaurant
251 Myamarlar St. Thuwunna, Thingangyun Township, Yangon, tel: +95 9 975 546 778
Agape
18 Shwe Pyi Aye St, Sanchaung Township, Yangon, tel: +95 9 421 167 008
Jing Hpaw Myay
Sanchang Township, No. 4B Kyun Taw Kyaung St, Yangon, tel: +95 9 587 49828
Koe Kant Kou Fu
Kandawgyi Garden Kandawgyi Nature Park, Mingalar Taung Nyunt Township, Yangon, tel: +95 9 503 8019
Root
Room G-01, Bo Myat Tun St, Bo Myat Tun Tower (corner of Bo Myat Tun and Maha Bandula Road), Yangon, tel: +95 9 456 696 695
Aung Thukha
17 A W Shwe Gon Daing Rd, Yangon, tel: +95 1 525 194
Rangoon Tea House
Ground Floor, 77-79, Pansodan Street, Lower Middle Block, Yangon, tel: +95 1 381 289
Mr. Sabuti
217 35th Street (Upper Block), Kyauktada Township, Yangon, tel: +95 9 978 763 438
Nang Htike
Bo Gyoke Rd, between 46th and 47th St., Botahtaung Township, Yangon, tel: +95 1 295 977
Min Lan
40 Nat Mauk St, Yangon, tel: +95 9 266 335 401
Mawlamyine Swe
No. 36 Lanmadaw 3 Road, Yangon, tel: +95 9 302 45397
Jana Mon
No.119 Nandawoon St, Yae Thar Shae Quarter, Yangon, tel: 95 9 250 825 442
