Burmese cuisine for beginners - Top 10 must-try foods in Myanmar

If you are planning a trip to Burma and wonder what to expect, here is the handpicked collection of 10 must-eat local foods that you absolutely should try as a newcomer. With the highlight of focusing mostly on rich salty flavours with a bunch of exotic ingredients, Myanmar food is said to wake up any taste-buds, haunt anyone in the best of ways and provoke more of discovery. Don't forget to take a look at our Myanmar Private Tours or contact our Asia Tailor-made Tours experts for more information.

1. Tea Leaf Salad (Laphet Thoke)

As you might have heard from nowhere, not just for a drink, tea leaf could be eaten and even beloved as the most famous food in Myanmar. 

Lahpet (green tea) is so important to the culture that when tea leaves are harvested, the best of the crop is set aside for fermenting, while the rest is dried and processed for drinking tea. The freshly harvested tea leaves are briefly steamed, then packed into bamboo vats and set in pits, pressed by heavyweights to encourage fermentation before becoming the national salad’s main ingredients. 

The Thoke (salad) itself is an eclectic mix of flavours and textures that include main elements of soft, pickled tea leaves, crisp, roasted peanuts and other crunchy beans, toasted sesame seeds, fried garlic and if you like, dried shrimp and chopped tomato.

This Myanmar food is versatile. Laphet is eaten in salads, as a snack or even as an after-dinner treat. Snack packs are sold everywhere, and they make a popular cheap meal for students who sprinkle it over rice. 

2. Mohinga

Mohinga - Fish base soup with rice noodle is an unofficial national Myanmar food that can be easily found from the hotel buffet counter to every hidden corner of the country. It is a typically yummy dish for any time of day or night but loved the most as for breakfast. 

This dish is a fine mixture of catfish broth with curry flavour, green bean flowers, lemongrass, fish sauce and often supplemented by a crunchy pitch of banana and a hard-boiled egg cut in half. Noodles used in Mohinga are Nanthay (small noodles). All together they make it a magic trick for the right balance in flavour that you could never feel quite right elsewhere.  

3. Shan-style noodle

Shan State is a fascinating tourist destination in Myanmar which is famous for not only the picturesque Inle Lake but also its own unique traditional cuisine. Top of the list that one should not miss is Shan noodle that is commonly made of thin rice noodles in a clear peppery broth with marinated chicken or pork, garnished with toasted sesame and garlic oil. It is even more delicious if served with a side of pickled vegetables.

In comparison to most of the Burmese noodle dishes, it is relatively simple, but it is reassuring satisfying and always tasty. Don’t skip the chance to try it if you are in Shan State.  

4. Burmese Curry

Yes, it is quite a common food you have at least heard one elsewhere, in particular, when it comes to India, China or Thailand culinary. As for influence from these neighbouring cultures, Burmese cook and eat curry too but, lots of them, with rice, on daily basis.  

It is as popular as any time you are invited for a lunch in Myanmar, curry always has a seat on the table as a proud food the host want to treat you.

Locals said curry can be simple, but also complicated food at the same time. Depends on different ingredients, we will have many kinds of curry dishes varying by regions. While people in coastal areas usually makes extensive use of fish and seafood-based products, inland-region cooks feel better to use more meat and poultry for their curry, instead.

But most of the time, fresh onion, curry powder and red chillies are indispensable ingredients that really give this dish a kick and a powerful taste.

5. Shan-style Rice

As Shan foods are very popular in Myanmar. Along with Shan noodle, Shan-style rice (often known as fish rice) is considered to be another signature among Burmese foods. The dish comes with turmeric rice and fish as main ingredients, often served with garlic oil and additional ingredients like garlic, leek/leek roots, and fried pork. 

Shan rice is usually served in a ball shape on a big plate with meat, beans and sauce on top. 

Together we have a savoury dish which can’t be found anywhere else that is largely loved in the local home by young and old alike.

6. Mandalay Myee Shay

Myee Shay is the speciality of Shan State with Mogok’s tangy version being the original favourite but by the time, Mandalay version is mostly spread and loved throughout the country. Like Shan noodle, this noodle dish combines pork or chicken sauce with medium size rice noodles but what really stands out of Mandalay myee shay is the addition of toasted chickpea flour for the thick mixture and garnished with bean sprouts and crispy fried garlic to balance the taste.

You can encounter this food at most tea shops in Mandalay, where the Myee shay is normally cooked outside of the main kitchen, giving guests the chance to see the whole process up close.

7. Barbecue

Well, no strange at all as you could have a Barbecue anywhere in the world. And Myanmar is not an exception. Yet rather served in fancy restaurants, Burmese barbecue is a very local and social experience with the long line of stalls off the town streets selling this every evening, in particular 19th street in Yangon. 

You’ll sit amidst the smoky atmosphere, on plastic stools around a small dining table, choose the different meaty/veggie sticks that you want to be barbecued then taste them hot while looking over lots of locals busily passing by. Order some local beer to cool off the heat as it goes well together. This is a must-do experience for night discovery in Myanmar!

8. Burmese Sweets

For most of the time, almost everything is sweet when we include sugar. But isn’t it interesting to have sweets, but not made with sugar? This could be real in Myanmar and don’t miss the opportunity to try it when you are here. Instead of using sugar, Burmese prefer to use natural ingredients better to create sweet flavour, commonly coconut, rice, tapioca, and fruits. Take Shwe Htamin (or Golden Sticky Rice Cakes) as an example, it is made from glutinous rice cooked with Pandan leaves, coconut milk, and jaggery, and garnished with fresh coconut shavings, often used as a common snack.

9. Deep-fried Snacks

If you are walking down the streets in Myanmar and come across plenty of vendors or stalls with different kinds of light-brown stuff, they are making deep-fried foods. And if you are deeply into fried things, you are getting the right place.

Burmese seem to love their old very much that they tend to cook everything with it. There are tons of freshly hot and crispy snacks you could find on streets ranging from samosas, spring rolls to fritters, sweets, bread served with Burmese dipping sauce.

One recommendation from locals is to try out Buthi Kyaw (or roughly speaking: gourd fritter) which is made of rice flour, flavoured with garlic, ginger, and chilli.

10. Falooda

Are you looking for an icy dessert? Here we are with queen Falooda, the most favourite dessert in Myanmar. It’s an icy cold, sweet and aesthetically pleasing beverage that is a mixture of rose syrup, vermicelli or agar agar jelly, basil seeds, jelly pieces, tapioca pearls shuffled with milk and ice cream. It can be a very popular drink to steer us away from the heat of Myanmar.