Mandalay Style Restaurant, Peninsular Plaza

We've never explored Burmese food much previously so this was a step out of our usual zone at Mandalay Style Restaurant (#B1-01 Peninsula Plaza, 111 North Bridge Road). Pretty much everything we ordered looked like a game of chance because of our lack of familiarity but on hindsight, we did know a tiny bit and there're some similarities we could relate to Thai food.

Like pork organ doke htoe. From what I could find out, these were supposed to be pork parts on sticks? Anyways, this rendition was in what appeared to be sweet soya sauce broth. There were parts like tripe, liver, ears, tongue, intestines and some which I couldn't identify. The braised offal were pretty tender, notably so for those pig's ears. Liver was dry and powdery but that texture/flavour had it's appeal.

This was a corn and tea leaf salad - the tea leaf being the same fermented stuff as laphet thoke. Tangy, earthy and a bit of heat that I didn't see coming.

Ordered a rice platter so that we could sample what they had. Clockwise from bottom

• laphet rice - Rice with the laphet. Flavour's kinda similar to the salad with much less intensity.
• pone yay gyi rice - I read it's made of fermented horse gram beans but it tasted like olives. Like a less salted version of a Thai olive fried rice. There's sliced chilli and onions in it.
• rice with beans and peanut oil - This in our opinion was the best tasting. It's as described, rice with beans, peanut oil and some salt. Don't know if there was anything else but the simplicity was oustanding. I could come back just for this.
• pyay rice - There's some spicy crispy stuff in it. And coriander too even though we told them not to include coriander for every item we ordered.

There's also a whole bunch of spicy anchovies + other crispies in the middle which was not bad tasting if one could deal with the heat.

The menu listed this as Mandalay styled mango salad. Imagine a pretty spicy som tam mamuang minus the sugar, lime and fish sauce. That was pretty much it. The heat from this salad took a little bit of time to build up and ended up pretty potent.

Inle Myanmar Restaurant, Peninsular Plaza

This is a rare venture for me if you've noticed. I haven't had so much experience nor opportunity with Burmese food with the exception of those cooked by a friend and an experience with some fried rodent from a helper once. The latter is another story for another space and time. We've seen Inle (#B1-07A Peninsula Plaza, 111 North Bridge Rd, tel : +65 6333 5438) for ages and have never thought to try. Until today.

Guess what?  It's not too bad. I could pick on little things like preferring a stronger flavour and more ingredients for the lephet rice but I still liked it enough to finish it happily along with the pickled tea soup with coriander that had been boiled to death. True story. Maybe a bit more fish sauce for delicious saltiness would be nice.

Quite liked their ohn no khao swe (spelling varies and it's a Burmese curry chicken noodle for simplicity) too. The broth has a richness that bears some similarity with our local laksa or the Thai khao soi. Somewhat lemak, a little tangy and more sliced red onions would have made it better. This was different from the home made one I had before though so I guess there are variations to how they're cooked.

Good Friday mee shay

Hey Crystal, when you're reading this, thanks for the mouth watering mee shay again. I thought that these noodles were better for texture than the kuey teows from the previous time. What's that semolina cake thingy with poppy seeds called again?

Crystal's ohn no khao swe

Imagine something along the lines of laksa with a less rich broth. That's would be how I'd describe this tasted like for a start.

From what I had seen, it all began with a cooked chicken - with the bones for the broth along with chopped garlic and coconut milk. The rest of the bird was deboned and has its meat boiled in the said broth which was actually rather mild in flavour on its own. The dried chilli, along with sliced raw onions and a squeeze of some lime helped perk things up noticeably and added some crunch to the slurpy noodles.

Many thanks for the Turkish coffee and delights Crystal.

Crystal's mee shay

Wow, this mee shay was really not bad and dare I say, authentic since it was made by someone who learnt how to do it back at home where it was done as many people would eat them minus the fanciful dressing and localised adaptation. Hey Crystal, this is yours and thanks for the really nice lunch. Certainly as well, this is the first Burmese entry I've ever done and will probably be an opening for more to come in the future once I figure out where to land myself more of their food locally.

Back to the mee shay, it wasn't too complicated to make them as well. Essentially, it's a kuey teow salad with stuff like pickled vegetables, chilli black bean paste, raw bean sprouts, spicy fermented tofu (excellent surprise), vinegar with bits of raw garlic and some starch, all hand mixed. How could I have forgotten to mention cubes of braised pork belly. There was actually some coriander garnishes which I passed of course. The result was a strong flavored and appetizing comfort dish which landed myself 3 servings. Oh man, the z monster afterwards....


And then, there was some pork rib and coriander soup with garlic. I'm glad that the coriander was just crushed stems which didn't introduce an overwhelming taste of that vile plant. I guess the mildness of that flavor actually gave a depth to the soup that I never expected that I would enjoy.



Thanks again Crystal, for a wonderful lunch, masala chai, frozen watermelons and cigars. Will be looking forward to the next lunch.