Page 95 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

EATING Yangon and around 93
YANGON STREET FOOD 1
Large parts of downtown Yangon often resemble an enormous outdoor café, especially after
dark, when every available piece of pavement seems to fill up with food stalls and crowds of
locals perched around low-slung tables on tiny child-sized plastic chairs. Burmese curries and
noodles are ubiquitous, while kyay-oh is another local favourite, with diners seated around vats
of bubbling water in which they cook their own slivers of meat and vegetables. Also worth
seeking out is the local samusa thote – slices of samosa served in a minty salad. Food stalls are
often interleaved with market stalls piled high with vegetables and colourful tropical fruit, plus
mobile vendors sitting behind enormous mangling machines selling glasses of freshly crushed
cane sugar – a popular local beverage.
One major caveat applies, however: hygiene. A study in early 2014 revealed that over a third
of food tested from Yangon street stalls contained Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus
bacteria, both of which can lead to food poisoning (and a quarter of the samples contained
these bacteria in dangerously high levels). Choosing busy stalls where food appears to be hot
and freshly prepared may help reduce risks, as does patronizing stalls where vendors use
plastic gloves rather than scooping food up with their bare hands. The major underlying
factors – utensils washed in dirty water and poor food hygiene and storage – are more difficult
to spot, however. You may prefer to save your street food sampling for the end of your trip,
meaning that if you do get ill, it at least won’t wreck your holiday.
WHERE TO EAT
The most popular street-food experience among tourists is on 19th Street in Chinatown
where you can snack to your heart’s content on everything from pig’s ears and glutinous
sausages to chicken wings, crunchy tofu and lots of seafood. Most of the pavement venues
here are actually extensions of the various cafés lining the road rather than proper food stalls,
although the grub is excellent and the beer’s cheap and plentiful (unlike the city’s traditional
food stalls, which only serve tea and soft drinks). The cafés here now spill out into
Mahabandoola Road, which is lined with further food stalls and market stands offering up
some of the city’s more outlandish foodstuffs – including deep-fried locusts and snakes,
severed duck heads and assorted pieces of pig.
Elsewhere in the city, Anawrahta Road is arguably the king of food streets, particularly
around the junction with Sule Pagoda Road. The sections of Anawrahta Road around the Sri
Devi and Sri Kali temples also boast stalls selling Indian nibbles including the inevitable
samosas and other deep-fried snacks, as well as shops loaded with traditional Indian sweets,
including rasmalai, jalebi and gulab jamun. A few places (such as Shwe Bali, on Anawrahta Road
just west of Sule Pagoda) also sell delicious lassis, while elsewhere you might find another
classic subcontinental cocktail, falooda – a kind of fluorescent milky concoction loaded with
bits of fruit and jelly.

old-world atmosphere backed up by some of the best up a wildly eclectic selection of local dishes ranging from
Burmese food in downtown, including a great range of Indian, Burmese and Chinese street snacks – egg parathas,
salads, soups and noodle dishes (K3000), plus great crispy wontons, samosa salads – through to assorted mains
Myanmar curries served thali-style on huge white plates. ($5–10) stretching from birianis to Burmese salads, plus
Daily 8am–10pm. feisty glasses of authentically strong and sweet teahouse
Parisian Cake & Coffee 132 Sule Pagoda Rd T01 tea and a good drinks list. Also home to the cool little Toddy
387298; map p.64. A smart modern makeover may have Bar upstairs (see p.95). Daily 8am–10pm.
robbed Parisian of its erstwhile enjoyably ramshackle Shan Yoe Yar 169 War Tan St T09 250 566 695; map
atmosphere, but it still provides a handy downtown pit p.60. Top-notch Shan cuisine in a handsome traditional
stop, with passable coffee and colourful cakes served out of teak house on the edge of downtown. The menu features
big glass cases. Daily 9am–7pm. all sorts of authentic and unusual dishes – banana-bud
★ Rangoon Tea House 77 Pansodan St T09 979 078 pork curry, beef salad with bitter sauce, stir-fried catfish
681; map p.64. Innovative venue in a chic refurbished with quince – with heaps of authentic soups and salads to
colonial building on historic Pasodan St. The decor is accompany. Not cheap (mains K6500–15,000), but worth
modern, but the nostalgic menu is an unashamed paean to it for a unique taste of northeastern Myanmar. No English
colonial Rangoon’s grass-roots culinary traditions, serving sign, although it’s hard to miss. Daily 6am–10pm.

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