Traditional Burmese Sour Soup

Traditional Burmese sour soup: it is served in most restaurants, alongside platefuls of rice and little dishes with different curries. You can pour spoonfuls of it onto your rice and mix it with a curry, or you can just drink it right out of the bowl. Usually the restaurant staff will keep refilling your bowl of sour soup unless you ask them to stop; I rarely ask them to stop—such is my love for sour soup. (Ironically, you don’t receive bottomless water when you eat out in this part of the world, you have to order a bottle of it.…

Coconut Milk Noodles

Coconut Milk Noodles

(Ohng No Khao Swe)

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“Coconut milk noodles” – that is the direct translation from the Myanmar name for this dish. A lot of dishes here have simple and sometimes vague names—“Chinese Muslim fried rice”, “wide fried noodles”, “soaked, long and fried”—names which do not always explain the flavor, contents, or texture of the dish. I struggled to give this recipe a proper title in English, afraid that a direct translation of the name would leads you to believe that the noodles themselves are made from coconut milk (which does sound pretty great, actually).…

Burmese Sour Soup

Sour Soup (Chin Hin)

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When we moved here last January, one of the first dishes I fell for was sour soup. It is served alongside curry dishes at many small curry and rice shops, and you usually are served a bottomless bowl of the stuff. There are a ton of variations on it, and I hope to share more of them with you in the months to come. This soup is called sour soup, but I don’t even know if the English word “sour” would be an apt description for it.