Food: Myanmar

Rice & curry

A "standard" Burmese meal at one of the roadside places consists of whichever curries you fancy from a range of bain maries, a heap of rice and some side dishes. On the whole I found the curries to be very meat focused - even the egg curry was usually in some sort of meat gravy. I always managed to find something to eat though, even if it was just side dishes. There was almost always a vegetable based soup and salad ingredients like raw carrots, cucumber, random leaves.. 

Broad bean, eggplant, dried fishies - at Two Two in Mandalay 

The curries were pretty unique in that they did not resemble the well known Thai or Indian curries, but rather was their own style. Onion and garlic flavours were dominant, and most were not particularly heavy in chilli.

A "fancy" meal at some roadside place in Nyaungshwe.

The curries are in china bowls and the side dishes in glass bowls

The rice was often quite broken and coarse - not the refined stuff we are used to in the West. There was always a mountain of it which helped to offset the heavy oily curries. 

A meal at a random place in Yangon, recommended by the post office lady

Tofu curry and egg curry at Redstar in Nyaungshwe. The green tomato salad was so refreshing.

The rice & curry places usually had a jar full of jaggery balls for dessert. 

Noodles

We saw noodles everywhere in Myanmar. The most popular of these is Shan noodles, interestingly translated as 饵丝 on Chinese menus. 

Shan noodles in Bogyoke Aung San market, Yangon

They can be served in soup or "dry" as here, usually with a heady mix of peanut, chilli and coriander and a squeeze of lime. The noodles are tossed until they are well coated in this mixture and there are usually bits of greens for a textural change. Utterly delicious, never got tired of this.

Plain noodles from a roadside cart 

Shan noodles buried under a pile of vegetables, Pan Cherry teahouse, Mandalay

Thicker Shan noodles in Nyaungshwe, opposite the market

Coconut noodles at Than Lwin guesthouse, Yangon 

Tea house

Teahouses are the best places to while away a few hours watching life go by, but sadly we just weren't in Myanmar long enough to do that very often. At the teahouses Chinese tea is complimentary and often used to wash the cups out, or as a bit of a fill-in drink in between drinks. Usually Burmese tea is the drink of choice, a thick strong brew sweetened with condensed milk. There was also instant coffee, a variety of soft drinks and sometimes) fruit shakes.

One day we were waiting for the bus in Bagan, so we spent the afternoon at Skyworld teahouse. It was interesting to see the dynamics of the teahouse - all the "waitstaff" were boys and girls aged perhaps 10-12, who all answer to a fat owner sitting in a tatty singlet & longyi behind the counter counting money. The regulars are offered cigarettes when they sit down, also brought out by the teaboys/girls. Teacups are brought out with giant metal tongs and deposited unceremoniously in front of you making a small splatter.

A variety of snacks are on offer.

Chapatti with butter and sugar 

Pastries filled with sweet bean paste like 老婆饼

Fried puffs filled with shredded coconut 

Other random food photos

 Fried Shan tofu with radish pickle

Random bus stop purchase of purple sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf which had a very strange taste - it was uncuttable and unchewable. Even chilli didn't help

Pickled tea leaf salad - at Taste Myanmar, Yangon

 A sign in Bagan - who knew good is a country?

Fried kittens? 

The best airline meal ever - Indian veg meal on Singapore airlines. Proper curries separated in little paper cups, a spicy bread, pappadums, yoghurt & pickle, and even milk burfi to finish the meal! 

Food: December

Breakfast with Gwyneth (what a inner west yuppie name) at Bread & Circus. This cafe is so bright and airy that it feels healthy sitting there among the produce scattered about - there was a basket of peaches and a box of pumpkins just next to our table. Along with the healthy theme I had this kale & quinoa dish which is quite simply done with chilli, garlic and onion, topped with a fried egg and some blanched spinach. I was so pleased with the simplicity of this that I made it the next week for a Christmas party. 

Sherry marinated globe artichokes with ancient grains, heirloom carrots, goats curd & beets from Bowery lane. What a mouthful - would never remember this as more than just "artichokes". I've never cooked this vegetable so have no idea what is involved but it looks time consuming. Each component was quite small and not particularly overwhelming. However when combined together the flavours were much more interesting and palate challenging.

Pandan pudding with rhubarb compote from Yulli's. We came here for a mega vegetarian dinner and practically ate everything on the menu including 3 of the desserts. This was the prettiest of them all. After dessert we had to have a second serve of gluten free moneybags just because they were black.

How I love that Sushi Masa is in my apartment block. They do simple things so well, such as the well executed kakiage udon, a cake of grated vegetable tempura with just the right amount of rubble, atop fat chewy udon noodles and a perfectly clear headed broth. They don't have many vegetarian options on the menu (I've eaten them all) but this one is a winner.

A random after work dinner at Basil with pizza, salad and nachos. Eating with vegans is easy at Basil.

90s nightmare from Brewtown. I have eaten the polenta dish here way too many times, and since they changed it to pairing with tomatoes I decided to try this mishmash which had a cute name. This was a solidly filling meal with marinated vegetables (eggplant, capsicum and field mushrooms) on pesto toast with spicy white bean mash and parmesan. I didn't eat out in the 90s enough (high school = Maccas) to know why it's called the 90s nightmare though.

Look at this pretty thing, a passionfruit curd cronut. Post nights breakfast at Brewtown usually involves several cronut rounds where a single cronut is cut into quarters and consumed by all the medical staff present... before ordering another round of one single donut. We would really order all of them at the same time, except the service at Brewtown is absolutely atrocious and this is our little game to get them back (immature I know..)

Smoked mushroom and tempeh burger from Veggie Patch Diner. It is amazing that the guys behind Veggie Patch van have opened up on this corner of Five ways (I really hope they make it!!) This burger was just so flavoursome and it's hard to imagine even the most hardcore carnivore wouldn't enjoy this. One can choose from sides such as sweet potato fries (the flat crinkly kind rather than chips) and a variety of luscious salads, here I had roast pumpkin and green bean salad.

In the month of December I was at Mary's for shroom burger three times. That's how awesome it is. I love everything from the soft sweet bun to the melty cheese to the garlicky mushroom, even the wilty lettuce. If only there was a quiet section so you could hear what your dining companions are saying.. but I guess that's what the cemetery across the road is for. 

Refreshing affogatos on a hot sunny afternoon from Gnome, with some damn amazing vanilla bean icecream.

Vegetarian dumplings from Alchemy in Surry Hills. What does a vegetarian eat in a Polish restaurant? Why, deep fried dumplings (with mushroom & sauerkraut and potato & cheese) served with sour cream and chives, of course! The waitress was rather confused when I said no to the bacon that usually comes with these dumplings, hmm...

Ricotta gnocchi with caramelised figs in a cream sauce from  Salt Pepper Nutmeg. This place surprisingly surpassed all expectations for a suburban restaurant - the gnocchi were featherlight, the figs lusciously sweet and the pesto balanced the heavy cream based sauce perfectly. A hidden gem in Roseville for sure.

When my friend's mum found out I had to work nights for a week starting on boxing day, she gave me a whole bunch of Lankan curries - dal, butter beans, cashew and eggplant. I just added some kale, rice, roti, yoghurt and pickle - an amazing meal that reminded me of why I have to visit the subcontinent again soon.

 Last but not least, when I got to work on boxing day night, this is what I found in the office - lube next to mince pies. Yes... this is where I work. 

Two horrible dreams

Lanium?

This dream starts in Centennial Park. I am there with E to attend some party that her friend has organised. It's a lovely warm day and the sun is shining but not excessively hot. The time feels like mid morning and when we arrive there is a gazebo set up on the grass with a very long table under it.

We take seats at the table and admire the amazing looking food and drink being served. There are about 20 people around the table and we can barely hear beyond our immediate neighbours as everyone is chattering at the same time. Soon E says she is tired and wants to go, so we get up and leave.

Then I am back at my own place sitting at the desk. In front of me is a huge pile of data collection forms and a single computer speaker which is not hooked up to anything. The speaker starts to sound with 1, 3, 2 and other random numbers. I realise that they are the numbers I need to enter into the forms and start writing them down. But it is dull and I fall asleep.

I wake with a start and look up, the time is now late afternoon. On my phone are several messages from E saying "where are you?" "I've made dinner" "I've rented a movie". I jump up and get ready to go to her house. Somehow I manage to drive my car all the way back to Centennial Park to the exact spot where we had the party earlier on.

The gazebo has been taken down and several people are strolling around the park. I realise that G & B are pushing a pram down the path and wonder when they had a baby. I approach them and they gesture for me to keep my voice down so I do not disturb the baby.

G gently lifts up the hood of the pram and I see a baby inside. It is wearing a jumpsuit and I can't tell if it's a boy or a girl. The head is covered with a light blue square towel, inscribed with "Lanium (Lanthanum)". I think immediately that it is strange for them to use a drug company issued towel to cover the baby's head.

Then I suddenly realise with a chill that I cannot tell if there is actually a head under the towel.. is the baby headless?

Then I wake up.




The one where there is no mouth 

The dream starts off with the arrest pager going off. The message shows "CCU Bed 6, ruptured aneurysm" and I wonder how switch knows the diagnosis.

I run up to CCU and there are crowds of people in the room. I manage to get to the head of the bed and there lies a very unwell looking woman in her 40s. She is severely malnourished with paper thin skin that hangs in folds - she has obviously lost a lot of weight and muscle recently. She has a deep sternal wound which is covered in black sloughy tissue, and I cannot help but stare at the dark gazing hole. I look up at her face and realise that there is a huge scar where her mouth was, and one cannot identify any normal structure in that area.

I ask her how she feels but she cannot talk. The nurses tell me that she has been in hospital for 2 months with a sternal infection. There are so many people in the room and they are all talking loudly, so much so that I cannot hear anything. I feel frustrated at the lack of order and wonder what I should do.

Suddenly I see a milk crate so I decide to stand on it. I shout "everyone stop!" and the noise immediately recedes. I order some of the nurses out of the room so that there are only about 5 people left. I start reading the notes and try to make sense of what's going on, then Captain walks in and says quietly "she has previously expressed wishes not to be resuscitated, so perhaps we should respect them."

I look through the notes with him and confirm this is true. He says he will go fetch the family as she should be with them as she is passing away. Then he comes back with MM a recent patient we had (that died) in our ICU and I am shocked when he says "this man here is her father".

Then I wake up.

Pinbone degustation

From the first time I read about Pinbone, I wanted to go there to eat the breakfast corn with fregola dish. Then a few months ago I somehow got the idea that it should be a celebration dinner after exams finish – and what a great instinct it was. The chef’s selection (small for $65, large for $85) is a fantastic way to try a range of dishes, and I relished the opportunity to try a “small” vegetarian selection (which turned out to be a lot of food).

  Snacks

The mushroom popper was the vegetarian alternative to the chicken popper. It looked so simple – a butter lettuce leaf, some shredded carrot, a fried mushroom, a bit of sauce – but the flavours just explode in the mouth. The miso & corn grugere was like a savoury profiterole with an interesting interplay of the most unlikely flavours. Smoky, cheesy thing was absolutely the perfect snack, a little jacket potato filled with heavenly smoky cheese.

Avocado with olive tapenade

This was a simple dish, a row of avocado slices topped with a green olive tapenade and some sort of herby leaf I didn’t recognise. The whole thing tasted light green.

Roasted carrots with macadamia puree

These impossibly cute tiny carrots were well caramelised and perfectly sweet. It was well paired with a rich earthy macadamia puree, which was so good we licked the rest off the plate.

 Asparagus, toasted sesame

The asparagus was char grilled with a strong smoky flavour, then rolled in a mix of black & white sesame seeds, again an interesting combination. 

 Tofu with heirloom tomato salad  

This felt inspired by agedashi tofu with a light crispy batter and a soft, almost gelatinous interior. The baby heirloom tomatoes were intense bursts of tomato flavours, leading one to ask – where do you source such amazing tomatoes!!

 Mushroom, kale, red cabbage, sichuan pepper

The flavours and textural contrasts in this dish were quite intense – a mix of wild mushrooms, shredded red cabbage and torn up bitter kale. If anything, it was over seasoned and less soy sauce would have allowed the mushrooms to sing more. 

 Raw zucchini, lemon, pecorino

I’m not a huge fan of raw things, but this was just awesome. Such a simple dish with grated zucchini perfectly seasoned and balanced with a hint of lemon, resting under a blanket of fine pecorino. I could have eaten a whole plate of this.

 Roasted eggplant, caramelised yoghurt, leeks

This was probably my favourite dish of the night. The eggplant was deeply roasted, velvety smooth and full of smoky flavour. The accompaniments of braised baby leeks and thick caramelised yoghurt with an almost pungent flavour were simply perfect. 

 Pumpkin, pepitas, silverbeet

Again a very simple but well executed dish. The toasted pepitas lifted this dish to another level. 

 Pasta special with taleggio, cavolo nero and edamame

I was told a few times (but still forgot) what this actual pasta was called – it is like gnocchi but made from whole wheat flour and has a much firmer texture. It is also pressed from a wooden board to create the ridges. It arrived at our table slightly stuck together – the cheese had melted and held everything together in one clump. A little mix though and this dish really sang with the hearty pasta, strong (stinky) flavours from the cheese and the sweetness of edamame. Who would have thought edamame would be a tasty addition to pasta?

Blueberry granita, white pepper parfait & pinenut brittle

We were groaning by this stage but dessert beckoned. This was a huge plate that looked somewhat like a mess when it was set at our table, but we quickly fell in love. The three elements of this dish are quite intriguing – the blueberry granita was so clean tasting that at times it resembled ice (except much softer), yet it balanced perfectly the rich creaminess of the parfait, and the pinenut brittle gave bursts of crunch and sweetness. Altogether the flavours dance in the mouth, and though we were totally stuffed, we managed to finish this entire plate.

Overall Pinbone was a lovely experience. The atmosphere is fine dining but relaxed enough for a weekday dinner, and the staff were quite friendly and helpful. The food is well designed, well prepared and had interesting variety for a vegetarian. The degustation is amazing value and I am surprised it is not more popular! 

Dreams: a train ride to a parallel world, and a strange breakfast

A train ride to a parallel world

This dream starts with an awareness that I am going to catch a train.

I see that my companion for the journey is T, one of the SRMOs that I worked with previously. We are walking along a road lined by old tall houses that look like the Dutch houses lining the canals of Amsterdam. The time is early evening, and the light is gentle but steadily fading.

We come to an unmarked entrance to a train station and look at the noticeboards but it's not clear which platform our train is on. We already have tickets in our pockets, so we ride on the first escalator down, which then leads to another and another and another. It seems like the escalators are never ending, and the train station must be at the centre of the earth. As we descend the air feels increasingly stale, and the atmosphere becomes somewhat claustrophobic.

Finally we come to the bottom of the escalators and emerge onto a platform. There are dozens of platforms stretching as far as we can see, but we cannot see any sign showing which platform we are actually standing on. 

All around us are crowds of people, carrying all sorts of luggage from fancy suitcases to big rice sacks. T and I discuss where to go for a while, and we decide that we must need to catch a train to the correct platform. At that moment an ancient looking train pulls up - it has only two carriages so we assume that must be the inter-platform train.

Inside the carriage it is almost completely dark. The overwhelming smell of humans, animals and excrement hits us like a wave. So many people are packed into the carriage that I lose T immediately, and I scramble amongst the people trying to find her, but it is so dark I cannot make out any faces. I think suddenly that we must be on a third class carriage in India, and so we must be going somewhere in India?

The train stops at several places but the mass of humanity prevents me from seeing what platform it is. I get the ticket out of my pocket and struggle to read it in the dark. The price is "134,00R" and the platform on it is 17, but still there's no way for me to tell where that might be.

I stumble off the train at a random stop and stand, blinking in a completely different type of light. T is not here, and the platform is almost completely deserted. I walk up and down the platform looking for her, but I see only a few solo travellers and a family with several small children. I realise that perhaps the train has gone and T has already gone on the train thinking I might be on it. I sit down on a bench and contemplate what to do next.

Suddenly, Elsie comes up to me and says what are you doing here? I am elated to see her and ask what she is doing here. She grabs my hand and says - let's take a photo together, so we can remember we were here! I tell her that I am looking for my friend and ask her if she has seen anyone that looks like her. She ignores me and asks an old lady nearby to take a photo of us.

We are standing under a dull lamppost, emitting a weak pool of orange light. The photo is snapped and we thank the old lady. Elsie looks at the photo and exclaims look!

In the photo Elsie and I are standing amidst a lush green field, which stretches as far as we can see. I struggle to put together the reality of the train station and the photograph of the beautiful field.

Then the alarm wakes me, and the dream is no more.


A strange breakfast
This dream starts in my living room. The time is early morning, perhaps around 7am. A few friends are lazing around on the couches and another few are seated at the round glass dining table. As far as I can see, it is really my living room from real life.

I have forgotten the topic of discussion at the beginning, but we soon start talking about breakfast. I open the fridge and there are random bits of food stuffed inside. I take out a box of leftover noodles, then some cold rice and pickles, then bread. People rise from their random places of lounging and take food to eat. I open the weet-bix and take the muesli out of the cupboard. The halwa and honey are liberally spread on toast.

I look over at my friends and everyone is nibbling on something except for CC. She sits on the chair closest to the fridge, legs crossed, a vacant expression on her face.

What would you like to eat? I ask her.
I don't know, she replies.

I open the fridge again and inside there is almost nothing left. There is an onion in the vegetable crisper, an assortment of sauces, and a single ruby grapefruit on the top shelf. I take out the grapefruit and inspect it - it is an excellent specimen with an exuberant skin and a deep fragrant smell. I hand it to her and she hands it back without saying anything.

I start to peel the grapefruit and cut it into segments on a plate. Then suddenly she says - don't you know? I have an eating disorder where I cannot take big bites of anything.

I look down at the segments and think for a moment whether she is saying they are too large to eat. 

She says, more emphatically, C has the same eating disorder, you know, what do you think she is going to eat now?

Then I wake up.

Amsterdam food

Before J and I headed to Amsterdam, we had no idea what we were going to do there. Never fear, Google helped me hastily patch together a list of things we wanted to eat and all the other "touristy stuff" just fit in between the food bits.

Stop 1. Fries 

The Dutch love fries!! Chip shops are all over town everywhere you turn, served in cute little paper cones and topped with a range of sauces. One shop we went to had about 20 sauces on offer - standard and gourmet! The classic is mayo though, and we had some damn good fries from this shop in the old town.

Nothing like a bit of queuing in freezing weather to stimulate appetite!

The fries were so good everyone just ate them opposite the queue. The father on the left feeding his baby son in the bicycle basket was particularly cute. Obviously Dutch people grow up with fry memories!

Another fries van. Cute but not as tasty fries.

Stop 2. Cheese

We ran into the first cheese shop we saw and stuffed our faces on cheese samples. There were so many types of cheese from cow's, sheep's, goat's milk.. all kinds of gourmet flavours like chilli, cumin, coriander, pesto, garlic.. and best of all, smoked cheeses. There were also stroopwafel samples which served as our introduction to the sticky syrupy wafer biscuits (though we never bought any touristy stroopwafel only from a supermarket). I am ashamed to say I think we may have had lunch in the cheese shop on samples alone.

 Gourmet cheese on display in front of a mural of where it came from

 

Cheese glorious cheese! at a cheese factory in Zaanse Schans

Stop 3. Poffertjes

I used to eat these in Darwin with Seetha - the Dutch man selling these at Mindil got to know us! These little pancakes are springy and light, dusted with icing sugar and served with a cupful of rum. We ate some dipped in rum, then I realised that you can leave it to soak in rum - how tipsy J got after that!

Stop 4. A traditional Dutch meal

Night had fallen over the canals, and we had no place in mind for dinner. We wandered aimlessly around the red light district, away from the cheap eats of Chinatown, and finally ended up at Cafe Tomaz which ended up being a TripAdvisor favourite! What a stumble. On the last day we even figured out it's right next to Begjinhof, but we didn't realise it was so close in the dark.

The inside of this place was warm and comforting, full of dark wood, dim lighting and old books on shelves. I read Babar in Dutch (a man came up to me and helpfully said - it's in Dutch) and marvelled at how similar the words looked to German but how incomprehensible it all was. Yes I am pouring beer but it's non alcoholic - Amstel 0%, surprisingly good.

J had mussels and I had this vegetarian mashpot - a mountain of mashed potato mixed in with roast pumpkin, zucchini and leek, topped by a dollop of cream and a couple of nude asparagus. It was perfect for a winter's night - like a hug from the inside, though I did get terribly sleepy afterwards and almost fell asleep on the tram. 

Stop 5. DIY breakfast, Dutch style

Despite my protests that breakfast should involve soft food, J talked me into buying these amazing Robben crackers which were made of some wholesome whole wheat and studded with pepitas. They had the most amazing crunch factor and the earthy taste when the thing shatters in your mouth is just amazing. We had some smoked cheese from the cheese shop, and also got some olive tapenade. And mini stroop wafel for dessert, because how can you have breakfast without dessert?

Here we are in the queue outside the van Gogh museum. We had an hour to have breakfast!

Stop 6. Where is Suriname?

Now I thought I knew where Suriname was - but we got mightily confused when we finally went into a Suriname restaurant called Warung Mini and it served Indonesian food. Afterwards we asked the lady (who really looked Turkish or middle Eastern) and indeed Suriname is a tiny country in the northern end of South America. It was colonised by the Dutch and after independence, many Surinamese chose to move to the Netherlands. She told us that the food is often Indo like because Suriname is so multicultural. J had a smoked meat rice combo, I had this gado gado which was pretty good.

Stop 7. Apple pie

We literally walked halfway across town to go to the most famous place for apple pie - Cafe Winkel. It was totally packed and people were hanging off the edge of the bars just to have pie. I don't know if it was the anticipation buildup but it was a bit disappointing for me.  

The crust is nice, slightly caramelised and just a little crunchy. The apple pieces are thick and relatively firm, heavily spiced with cinnamon with plump sultanas mixed through. All the elements of the dish were there.. but it was missing magic!

I liked the one we had at the bestest cafe ever de laatste kruimel better. Though the crust was more soggy, the apple was velvet like and the whole cake felt light and more alive in the mouth.

Stop 8. Space cake

 What can I say? I think they forgot to put the space in our cake. 

Stop 9. I love supermarkets

One of the best things about travelling is going to the supermarket and seeing what locals buy.

 Say cheese!

The Dutch obviously love sausages.

Intricate speculaas (ginger cookie) moulds

My favourite find. Fried rice in a can?

I think this little piggy is made of some sort of marzipan and has since been chopped up for sale except for his head, fake apple still inside his mouth. Stuff of nightmares! Later in another bakery we saw a whole pig made of marzipan - it must be a Dutch tradition.

Stop 10. the last crumb 

We spied this lovely cafe de Laatste kruimel on the first day and thought everything looked just delectable from the window.  

We returned for a very last minute afternoon tea just before going to the airport. It didn't disappoint - if I had stayed in Amsterdam longer, I would have liked to return to try something different everyday.

The inside was cosy and full of knickknacks. An industrial mixer sat next to a huge oven, filling the cafe with all sorts of delicious smells.

Man, just look at that apple pie...