The nothing short of awesome location for the cooking lesson
I normally start the food blog towards the end of my time spent in a destination after writing notes but this time around I find myself too excited not to mention Min & Mays cooking lesson. Set tucked away from the tourist chaos in their little village on Inle lake surrounded by a 60% floating tomato farm. I should add they are one village of 156 villages on Inle lake. It seems a small lake but with suburbs kind of thing it doesn’t at all feel congested, you wouldn’t even think it possible that there are many inhabitants living there to be honest.
Its only this afternoon that we’ve finished the awesome cooking lesson at Mr Min (and Mays) and I’m writing the blog within 3 hours of the experience. Sometimes I have to digest the situation, take in some photos, reminisce over the flavour combinations that’s been occurring in my mouth and then write about it. I’ve found myself beaming for the duration of the 5 hours of the cooking lesson and whilst writing this blog. Seems obvious to most of my friends that experiencing new food in any which way fills me with excitement and happiness but after having an ACTUAL cooking lesson I now realise what an invaluable experience it is. Learning more in those 5 hours than I ever could have in 2 weeks of just eating!
Three years ago I missed the opportunity to have a Vietnamese cooking lesson but came home after falling in love with the cuisine, taught myself through research and many U Tube videos. NOW I see just how beneficial they are, not to mention meeting the most lovely people who have not only grown up with this food but actually grow their food and have the love of teaching about it as do I.
MR MIN AND MAYS COOKING LESSON
You will see this as Mr Min’s cooking lesson online but I feel the need to write about May as it was herself that gave us the wonderful cooking lesson today :)
Collected at 8 am in the tuc tuc by May and her colleague to then head over to the local market. For around 40 mins mooching around the market choosing the ingredients for our lesson and of course me asking many questions as my eyes feasted on so many ingredients I hadn’t seen before. The fish, fished this very morning from the lake, gleaming with moisture from its freshness. By lunch all the fish and meat is sold in this market so first come first served. The meat fresh on the pork lady or chicken ladys wooden butchers blocks weighed out on some very vintage looking scales. The veg bursting in big bunches, you can’t help but to want to buy this food. The spices in huge bowls or barrels ready to purchase by the scoop not a teeny tiny little packet or the crispy mixed nut sesame chili mix varieties they have. FEAST YOUR EYES! I’ve experienced this in Vietnam and Cambodia a few years ago. No super market back home can ever compare to local markets like this. It’s not just your eyes but the smells (sometimes good, sometimes bad). Its how REAL it is? Not the cosmetically enhanced veg that all looks perfect in shape and size or colour as we've become so accustomed to back home due to consumerism. Nope, we’ve seen curly aubergines, odd cucumbers and all sorts today. It’s refreshing to see food with new eyes on these rare occasions.
Tuc tuc down to the jetty and into the wooden kayak/ boat you go. Off we cruise for 20 mins till we reach Mays village. Suddenly it’s serene and peaceful. BUCOLIC. I’m fairly sure if you take the tourist boat trips you would be greeted with many stops down the lake to purchase various items such as cotton, cigars etc but this way with Min, we entered a little escape into tranquility. Min and Mays perfect little cooking house on stilts perched on the calm lake surrounded in every direction with the tomato plants growing on floating banks. (We did actually take this tourist boat a few days later and its precisely what we thought. Call me cheesy or boring but I much preferred Mins little haven of peace)
You walk into a very organised set up cooking lesson, each person with a good station to work on. Your own knives, chopping board an apron and even your own recipe book that you can take home. This is now like gold to me, extremely thankful to have these recipes to refer to. There were a few extra notes I made that I picked up throughout that I’ll share of course ;)
Min has a lovely nature about her, a soft voice filled with passion for what she does. Min delegates really well ensuring all people in the group get divided equally with enough tasks without leaving anyone out. We had 3 in our group and it was a great amount. Next you plough through around 11 dishes ranging from salads, vegetables to fish meat and curry’s.
SHAN CUISINE
Shan cuisine uses water compared to Burmese using more peanut oil. A few reasons, they tend to use more water in the country or lakeside as its cheaper aswell as healthier. Peanut oil is the oil used here, as others are too expensive.
Shan cuisines uses garlic and ginger as a base along with chicken powder (a new introduction of more recent years, Min says its not a base/ more a seasoning). We used this in nearly all the dishes.
A FEW BASICS THEY USE
CRISPY GARLIC – Easy peasy but such a pleasant subtle garlic flavour and its crispy!
TURMERIC OIL - Peanut oil heated with a pinch of turmeric used for cooking with.
ROASTED PEANUT POWDER – Roasted peanuts and peanut powder adds a pleasant texture to salads and numerous dishes.
SOY CHILLI GARLIC WATER DIP – Loved this! Will make this at home for sure.
GREEN TEA LEAF – Washed twice, lime juice, salt chili and a little peanut oil. This is then used for salads or to accompany dishes.
Fried tempura vegetables with 2 dipping sauces
THE ARRAY OF FOOD WE MADE DURING OUR LESSON
FRIED TEMPURA VEGETABLES - Served with 2 dipping sauces. Sliced tomato, spring onion, garlic, ginger, turmeric powder in the peanut oil, tempura (rice flour), salt.
SOY CHILI GARLIC WATER DIP – Loved this! Will make this at home for sure.
GREEN CHILI LIME DIP - Add salt, garlic and chicken powder
SPECIAL INLE WHOLE FISH – Whole fish fried then steamed filled with garlic, ginger, spring onion, tomato and lemongrass. Lemongrass is mostly used just in fish curry’s, rarely meat. The fish was Talapia, they brought it over from Japan to eat the weeds and other small fish but is now a fish the Shan people eat. We can also get this in England but frozen.
SHAN PORK CURRY – Onion, garlic, lean pork trimmed of fat, ginger, tomato, turmeric with peanut oil, water, lemon basil leaves and chili at the end
RICE WITH POTATOES AND TOMATO - Rice with mashed potato, chopped tomatoes topped with roasted crispy garlic – This is used on special occasions or family gatherings
CHICKPEA VEGETABLE SOUP – Garlic, chili, coriander, spring onion, carrot, chicken powder, peanut oil with turmeric
SHAN TOFU CURRY - (Shan tofu is made with chickpea not soya and its delish) – Spring onion, tomatoes, chili, ginger, garlic, chicken powder
TOMATO SALAD – Tomatoes, peanut powder, small white onion, crispy garlic oil, lime, salt, chicken powder
GREEN TEA LEAF SALAD – Mixed peanut mix, pickled tea leaves that are washed twice then made into a pickle, black toasted sesame, tomato.
CUCUMBER SALAD– Toasted black sesame seed powder, roasted crispy garlic oil, lime, salt, chicken powder
FRIED COURGETTES WITH GARLIC – Its like the stem of spinach but its courgettes leaf/ stem. We don’t use it or maybe don’t have it in England. Fry sliced garlic first, add a dash of water then the courgette leaves, same method when cooking morning glory.
After all the dishes are complete you sit down feasting on your many accomplishments. Eating this wonderful food, cooking in an idyllic atmosphere was just perfect. We could only hear ourselves and the hum from the frogs on the lake. It was DELICIOUS! There was so much food we couldn’t eat it all between the 4 of us. Once you’ve settled Min offers for her colleague to take you around the local village in the boat. Boat using a large piece of bamboo as an oar, no motor here. They have this technique of using their leg and arm to row. I’ve not seen this before, they made it look effortless, though I’m sure if id been brave enough to try id have fallen in and on my full stomach id surely have sunk! We saw some locals on the very peaceful tour appreciating even more so how lucky we were to have spent time in this place.
To top it all off, May takes you back down Inle lake to the jetty, back in the tuc tuc and straight to your hotel/ hostel door.
This cooking lesson including all transfers and market tour to buy the ingredients cost us $35 each. At first we thought it a bit steep. Your see there are in fact many places in town that offer cooking lessons for $20 BUT I am in no doubt that it was worth every penny paying the extra, we were in the most perfect setting having a very organized cooking lesson with lovely people. They don’t sell it enough what your getting for your money, I haven’t stopped raving about it since and HIGHLY recommend to anyone visiting Inle lake. Thank you Min and May for making our trip more special.
MAYANMAR/ BURMA
I seem to have spoken so much about the food during the cooking lesson that its covered the vast amount of varieties in Burmese cooking that we have sampled. We've eaten some street food in Yangon, eaten at the locals eateries to the more well to do places for a treat meal here and there as you do so need when backpacking. So theres a variety of recommendations below for you.
RECOMMENDATIONS FROM DIFFERENT AREAS IN MAYANMAR
THIN HYAT– Inle Lake
The local curry with all the little extras such as picked green mango, soybean paste, dried shrimp fish, peanuts, chili sauced served with a plate of mixed vegetables to dip in. This is additional to your curry with rice. On this occasion I had the aubergine curry which was just delicious with its aromatic flavors. How do they do it…
DIM SUM HOUSE – Inle Lake
GREAT dim sum if you fancy something different to local Burmese cuisine. The Pad Thai here is excellent.
SIN YAW – Inle lake
Lovely steamed whole fish and the staff here are awesome too!
THE FRENCH TOAST – Inle Lake
Perfect place to unwind and chillax, get your mac out and write a food blog. They have a different menu with French influences. It’s a bit pricey compared to the local food but you pay for what you get here. We had the crispy croquet. A crispy pancake toped with bacon mushroom cream sauce with egg and melted cheese. YUM!!! When you need those rare moments of western food head here. They have croissants too. Same applies, great for people on holiday, not so much for backpackers. We shared dishes. PS, Good wifi and free movies at 7pm produced by the very owner himself. Your see some fabulous photography on the walls here that are his as well.
511 – Yangon
We were the only tourists in here as a local recommended it to us. We had delish food and cheap as chips. Pork curry with rice, morning glory with garlic. The whole fish looked great too (were trying this tomorrow for our last day in Yangon).
RANGOON TEA HOUSE – Yangon
Firstly this place is expensive if you’re a backpacker but not if your on holiday. One thing about travelling is that you get used to paying the locals prices. However this place is a real treat, tucked upstairs you walk in think wow! This place is nice, with good service and treats galore on the menu. We had an array of little dishes here. Butterfish Bao, lamb samosa, pork and mango curry, soft shell fried crab. This place has awesome wifi so grab a coffee or a beer (Dagon beer I hear is good) if you need to connect back home.
QUEEN – Old Bagan
We drove past here on e bikes, it looked nice so we popped in. Great food, reasonably priced beers and coctails. We found that in Bagan it fairly difficult to find decent food. Although there are many places to eat opposite hostels (Ostello Bello) its feels they are trying but not quite making it with the flavours. Maybe because we came from Inle lake that had an abundance of restaurants with good food.
KYAW KITCHEN - New Bagan
We did venture out on a 10 minute walk to Kyaw kitchen. Its more expensive than the places on your doorstep but you get FRESH food and HUGE portions so well worth the extra. The owner is lovey and made time to come and talk to us about the recent earthquake.
Bagan - Temples everywhere, you can cruise around on your e bike and at times be the only person in a temple enjoying the sunrise or sunset
Bagan itself is just beautiful with temples dotted around, you find yourself submerged in the peaceful surroundings cruising around on your e bike sometimes being the only person at temples. Unfortunately for us we were in Bagan as the earthquake hit so now limited to what temples we can visit as most have been declared unsafe. We were very lucky to have made it out of Dhamayangy temple unharmed. It would be our luck to be in the biggest temple at the very moment it occurred. This particular temple dating back to the 12th century and can never be repaired. Such a shame.
I do recommend anyone wanting to visit Myanmar/ Burma head there soon. Its special in a different sense to other areas in Asia, not yet saturated with tourists, you can walk the streets and be the only westerners. The Burmese people are LOVELY!! Smile…Smile Mingalabar ‘ hello’, 'Jezubar ‘ Thankyou.
I can imagine especially in Bagan that in 5-10 years it will be consumed with luxury hotels amidst all the palm trees soaking up the best views of the temples (and ruining them). It’s a pleasure to be somewhere like this now…