Friday lunchtime and a new wave of mostly male customers start shuffling into Aung Pyae Phyo, a small Indian diner on 37 Street.
The owner Zaw Naing, 42, and his teenage helper stand ready with their ladles to spoon out unlimited scoops of potato curry and spicy pickle into steel thalis.
In the low-ceilinged curry house, everything has a metallic gleam—the cups, the tables—only the plastic stools are flimsy. Menus in Burmese and English are plastered on the walls, but few bother checking them.
The place quickly fills up and, like any other day, the main order is ram testicles, which in Burmese is pronounced figh tin bau, or fighting ball if you blurt it out.
“It’s good for men to eat,” Zaw Naing says, switching to English. “Make love long time, not short. Very nice.”
Zaw Naing personally recommends the crab although everyone seems consumed with the testes, which are covered in the house masala. This kind of oily Burmese masala coats the 30 main dishes, with each version slightly tweaked in spiciness or sourness.
The southern Indian element, where Zaw Naing traces his heritage, is the thali that lands at your table within seconds of sitting. In its compartments are rice, potato curry, gourd, and a soybean, carrot and tomato pickle.
Depending on the season and what Zaw Naing’s sister-in-law finds in the afternoon markets, the side fixtures often change. In the evening the family chops up the vegetables and Zaw Naing’s eldest sister starts cooking them at dawn.
Costing between 2,000-4,000 kyats (US$1.3-2.6), the main dishes come out in seconds too, though the recipes are a product of time and deliberation, fine-tuned by the family for at least half a century.
They include varieties of chicken, duck and mutton curries, fried sturgeon, catfish and butterfish (tips: the ‘patpar fried’ are small poppadom and the ‘lobster curry’ is in fact prawn).
Arguably the most glorious part of Aung Pyae Phyo is the endless refilling of the side dishes, meaning you can gorge yourself for under $3. But some patrons would say no, the glory lies in the sheep testicles.
This favourite comes in a naturally modest portion and has an offal-like taste. The texture of the tissue is somewhere between scallop and cottage cheese and the outer membrane is chewy.
And everybody gets a complimentary bean stew, a creamy affair with eggplant and sometimes pumpkin, along with a potent mango and chilli chutney.
Zaw Naing takes care of his customers, ensuring they leave satiated. He is one of eight siblings, who have split into teams of four to run Aung Pyae Phyo and another establishment a short walk away on Seik Kan Thar Street that specialises in dosa.
A monk at a North Okkalapa monastery named the diner in 1992, says Zaw Naing, when they were based on Pansodan near the Indian embassy.
Opening up shop on 37 Street in 2010, Zaw Naing continues a family tradition of feeding Yangon; his great grandmother had an eatery on 29th Street in 1970 and each generation since has opened their own.
Aung Pyae Phyo might just be the best yet—and don’t feel obliged to tackle the fighting ball because there are plenty of other tasty options on the menu.
Address: 132, 37 Street, Yangon
Contact: 09 254 350 659
Open: 11am-9.30pm (closed on holidays)
