OK, actually, first contacts.
But anyway.
I met a couple of young Burmese people (and yes they call it Burma, not Myanmar) socially recently, who inspired me to try Burmese food. I've yet to visit Burma/Myanmar, which only recently opened up to tourism and commerce. And the cuisine was not even on my radar previously. But turns out there are a couple of decent Burmese food outlets in Singapore, so I gave it a go.
Twice. It's GOOD!
This experience of Burmese food offered unique, fairly fragrant flavours and tasty balances of mild spice, sour, nutty etc. The cooking doesn't use coconut like nearby countries do, and it is not frighteningly chilli-full either. (OK, this restaurant would be catering to a local Singaporean audience, but most SE Asians are unafraid of chilli!) So my guess is that overall Burmese cuisine is milder than others, such as Indian or Thai, from which it apparently draws historical influence (alongside Chinese). My personal view is that Burmese cuisine is not unlike Peranakan (Straits Chinese) food in terms of delicate flavours and combos. But obviously, I've only had a limited experience of it so far. And as one Burmese friend said, this restaurant was only about 60% as good as the real deal back home.
Either way, here is a selection of the dishes I tried :)
Black Bean Pork
Tender pork stewed with black bean sauce. I don't know what's in the recipe (apart from, one would guess, black beans!) but the gravy was rich, nutty, black-beanish with a touch of 'sour' to it ...I might even say 'lemonish' but apparently there's no citrus in there. It came with rice and a watery sour/spicy soup.
Tea Leaf Salad
This is more a 'mix', not a Western-style leafy salad. Ours was served pre-mixing, so that we could try the components individually. But it was good as a mixture too. The ingredients included: stewed tea leaves, dried shrimp, garlic cloves (require peeling!), a potpourri of various (roasted?) nuts, raw tomato and green chillis. A tasty, crunchy combo, though I avoided the chillis!
Chicken Curry with Butter Rice
Tender chicken in a sort of fragrant, flavoursome curry sauce. It was not a creamy, heavy curry, but quite a light one, with mild chilli spice, and includes potatoes - yum. And maybe that slight hint of (not) citrus again?? (Is it tamarind?) Rice was indeed buttery, and the meal came with a sour/chilli side soup with greens again, which was quite a good flavour complement.
Shwe Yin Aye (a rampant rainbow-coloured cendol dessert!)
Cendol (chendol) is actually a green noodley thing used in a lot of SE Asian desserts (a fave of mine being the Malay pudding called... erm, Cendol!) The Burmese version is a different recipe, and offers a selection of cendol, jellies, coconut jelly, sticky rice, sago, white bread, beans and nuts, all in a creamy coconut soup. It wasn't bad, not too sweet, the rice and sago were particularly nice. The bread was a bit strange to me, but perfectly edible in the mix!
Where?
We went to: Inle Restaurant in Peninsula Plaza, Singapore.
http://www.inlemyanmar.com.sg/
If you're feeling braver re 'guessing the menu' the next door, more casual, YaNant Thit was also recommended for curry. (I think some of the menu is in Burmese, hence the 'guessing' aspect!)
https://foursquare.com/v/yanant-thit-burmese-food/4bf510176a31d13ae667962e
Happy eating!
