Chuffy. Chuffy. Chuffy. Chuffy.
Chuffy. Chuffy is a good name for a steam train or a budgie. It just sounds good—chuffy. It’s also the name of Yangon’s newest diner, Chuffy Bite.
Set opposite the slightly dodgy patch underneath Pansodan bridge, the eatery is run by 19-year-old Myanmar Imperial University student Zin Wai Naing.
He has enrolled the help of an aspiring actor and a rock musician to serve and, during the evening, serenade customers while also indulging in strong drinks.
Chuffy Bite is yet to appear on Google maps; this article is its first publicity. The gang’s marketing strategy seems to rely heavily on the merry noise of “chuffy,” which Myanmar Mix can exclusively reveal (after some intensive research) to mean “chubby” in American English or “surly” in British English.
Zin Wai Naing is convinced it means “big”—as in Big Bite—and so decided to make the menu super cheap so customers could gorge themselves: but on what?
Lunch sets are not really sets but a dozen vaguely Chinese dishes each priced from 1,500-3,000 kyats. These include chicken with cabbage, sweet and sour chicken, and an omelet with fried rice.
Main dishes (2,000-4,500 kyats) include chicken burgers, Thai basil chicken, and a wildcard homemade tortilla, while snacks are chicken wings, chicken satay, fries, grilled vegetables and seafood.
Together with a range of salads and soups are surprisingly fresh and tasty juices (1,500 kyats).
On a recent visit, the two other customers were a police officer and a disheveled young man sipping a pint of whiskey. They smiled uneasily at each other as the actor poured free thimbles of purple Fanta.
A student dorm vibe seeps from the bookshelves and obligatory guitar, from the bathroom sink suffocated with a plastic basket of shampoos and throttled toothpaste, from the cartoon depiction of the solar system that Zin Wai Naing wacked on the wall.
Immersed in a never-ending battle with dirty glasses piling up in a curiously-placed sink by the front window, the staff are likely to ask if you will return that night to get drunk and sing with them.
On another recent visit, a model in a plush red dress walked in with what may have been a film crew and looked at the dirty glasses with contempt.
A hungry young woman sat glaring at the kitchen, which is a bit slow, and sunshine falling through an empty bottle of stout refracted towards her angry face.
When the bok choy chicken arrived, it looked miserable, like the surly type of chuffy. The honey and lime juice never did arrive. But other choices (kung pao chicken, tortilla) were excellent value and it’s important to note this article is not a review—it’s a “new opening.”
Chuffy Bite was opened this month, the Wi Fi is immensely fast and the owner is a teenager. What were you doing when you were 19 years old? Probably not running a restaurant.
So Chuffy Bite is one of those places worth visiting, because what else is there to do with your life? The staff are happy and smiley, their dreams yet to be crushed, most of the food is tasty and all of it is cheap. And the restaurant’s name includes the word Chuffy. Chuffy. Chuffy. Chuffy.
Address: 86 Bogyoke Aung San Road, Kyauktada township, Yangon
Contact: 09 797 501 358
Hours: 9am-5pm, 6pm-11pm every day
