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Curious to get a taste of Burmese cuisine? Here's where you'll find plenty of it.
Finding Peninsula Plaza, the Burmese enclave in Singapore, is easy enough but navigating it is not. Unless you read and speak Burmese, you’ll find it challenging to converse with store proprietors or make sense of product labels and menus. While the space appears as insular as it is foreign, we quickly discover the gentle spirit of the Burmese. Those we can’t converse with greet us with nods and smiles while those who can are sympathetic to our curiosity and generous with their hospitality, urging us to eat this or try that.
An array of dishes at Yanant Thit Myanmar Restaurant
Burma’s myriad of local ethnic minorities has given rise to the diversity of Burmese cuisine. As the country shares its borders with China, India, and Thailand, you’ll also taste the flavours of these countries on the Burmese table. Head to Yanant Thit Myanmar Restaurant (#B1-07) where a striking array of dishes line the display counter: vibrant salads tossed with meat or tofu, deep-fried catfish, stewed pork glistening in a seductive prawn paste sauce, et al. The restaurant displays 20 to 30 cooked dishes each day, and diners survey the spread before calling for a mix of dishes to be enjoyed with rice and soup. Mohinga soup, while typically eaten for breakfast in Burma, is served here all day. The dish features vegetable fritters atop springy rice noodles luxuriating in a fish-based gravy. Hard-boiled eggs add body to the dish while a generous showering of fried garlic lifts it with an aromatic crunch.
Provision shops here are sometimes fronted by betel nut counters selling betel quids — sliced areca nut, assorted spices, and slaked lime paste wrapped in betel leaves. But even without the lure of a betel nut counter, Shwe Yadanar Minimart (#03-52) sees a steady stream of Burmese trawling its neatly curated aisles for pantry basics from the motherland. Take the underpass through to Peninsula Excelsior Hotel (5 Coleman Street) and you’ll reach Mandalay Style (#B1-29) — possibly the best-kept secret of the area. Jamie Eng, the lady boss of the eatery, came to Singapore a decade ago as a student and has since stayed on to run this eatery opened by her relatives. The dishes here take heed from the Mandalay region and the kitchen harbours a charcoal grill, where lady’s fingers, chicken tails, and pork ribs crackle to perfection, fanning curls of smoke rising heavenward like prayers to Mandalay — once the ancient capital of Burma. The barbecued fish, a whole tilapia stuffed with chili, ginger, onion, garlic, and vegetables, cooks gently for 25 minutes on the grill before it is deemed worthy to be served. “Many of my customers are Burmese, but I’m beginning to see more Singaporeans dining here too,” sharesEng. Perhaps this growing appetite for Burmese cuisine would spark the opening of more such eateries, and we certainly look forward to tasting a litte more of Burma in Singapore.
Peninsula Plaza is located at 111 North Bridge Road.
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