Burmese cuisine popular but ‘envoys lacked junta support’

Saturday, 21 August 2010 00:26 Kyaw Kha

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Burmese traditional foods were a hit at a recent world food festival held by the Vietnamese government in Vung Tau, Vietnam, with strong visitor interest in Burma’s cuisine, food producers said. They added however that they received no help from the ruling military junta, despite being urged to go.

Food suppliers from 80 countries exhibited, but it was Burmese dishes that captured participants’ attention, according to the sources.

“Burmese traditional thick noodles, sticky rice and fried dried-fish were popular … On the first day of the festival, we prepared food for just 500 people. Within an hour, we run out of food to sell,” Phyu Phyu Tin, the owner of Monsoon Restaurant, Rangoon, told Mizzima. “So, the next day, we prepared dishes for 1,000 people. That amount was not enough, too. So, the rest of the festival, we prepared … for 2,000 … that too was not enough.”

The festival was held from July 21 to 25. Monsoon Restaurant and Royal Thazin, a restaurant near Inya Lake, Rangoon, sold Burmese traditional thick noodles, traditional sticky rice, mont hinga (Burmese traditional fish and noodle soup), traditional tomato curry, fried dried-fish and fried beef, their owners said.

The festival was opened from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. but most of the food had run out before 7 p.m. At first, the restaurants’ owners thought that mont hinga would be popular, but it failed to thrill visitors, they said.

“Foreigners are very interested in my stall because the foods are unfamiliar with them and most of them don’t know Burma well. So, they were eager to know what kind of foods came from which [part of the] country,” Phyu Phyu Tin said “We were able to attract more visitors than could Indian and Thailand food stalls because those cuisines are available all over the world.”

Although Hotel and Tourism Vice-Minister General Aye Myint Kyu encouraged the food producers to participate in the festival, the ministry failed to provide any material support. The owners of the restaurants had to spend their own money to travel there.

Food suppliers from other countries received support from their governments, so they could arrange traditional music and dance shows and display traditional clothes, according to Phyu Phyu Tin. Burma was unable to do this.

“Food sellers from other countries could even do food decoration as they had sufficient support from their governments and their teams were large … we had to participate on a self-help basis”, Phyu Phyu Tin said.