Friday, September 4, 2009

Yangon Food

(PICTURE: Those red specks are chili. Basically all the broth in this picture ended up on my shirt moments later as I sweated it out.)

One of the things I did like in Yangon was the food. Lonely Planet describes it as the culinary capital of Myanmar. However, as you may recall from earlier blogs, I think LP has horrible picks for restaurants. Huyen and I went to two LP places while in Myanmar and they were the two worst meals we ate and the second and third priciest. Generally I like LP except for the food picks. If you don't believe me, I suggest finding the Lonely Planet edition for your city and seeing what they recommend. I once read over the Los Angeles book and the food picks were places I would never eat at.

I digress. The food in Yangon was really good. I was a little worried that my stomach would react badly to eating curry on the street but apparently my belly has been well trained from my time in 'Nam.
(PICTURE: Eating Mynmar corn. Notice Huyen's eating red corn or as some people call it in the USA "Indian Corn".)



Because of Myanmar's diverse culture there are varied cuisines. The majority of the food is Indian or Chinese. The food is also very spicy. This lead to me sweating A LOT.

One thing that I found very interesting was the soda. Because of the international boycot on Myanmar, Coke and Pepsi don't do business with the country. Myanmar has basically ripped off famous American sodas and renamed them other things. For example Coke = Star. If you did a blind taste taste you'd have a hard time telling them apart. The one difference between them in Myanmar is that a Star costs about a quarter. A coke will run you over $3 because it has been smuggled into the country through the black markets.