Despite being only a four-hour drive from Yangon, Taungoo diners are much harder to find, then, say, US or Mexican food in the commercial capital. It’s all Burmese food, you may say, but the owner of a new restaurant disagrees.
“Taungoo food is better for your health than the food in Yangon,” says Taungoo Food House owner Kyi Mya Mon.
“We use beans, tofu, lots of fish, and it’s not as oily. You can eat this food every day, but maybe people here say the same thing about their food.”
The Taungoo native has been in Yangon on and off for 15 years, with stints in Singapore as an engineer and in her home town where she ran a fabric shop.
Kyi Mya Mon has packed the kitchen with a team of Taungoonians (?) who have been using ingredients from the historic town in Bago region in their simple, light dishes since the establishment opened two months ago.
The restaurant’s best-selling Taungoo mohinga also uses deep fried pea fritters and rice powder sourced from the town. Its coffee comes from Thandaunggyi, a nearby former colonial retreat in the Kayin hills.
Dishes hover around the 3,000 kyats mark and focus on breakfast and lunch, served in a clean setting flooded with natural light.
Other hits to look out for are the gyone gyo, a warm bowl of wheat with durian and coconut shavings, and the local sausage stuffed in sheep intestines, fried, and ideally devoured with a bottle of beer.
There are also plenty of Burmese classics with a Taungoo twist, such as noodle and curried chicken nan gyi thohk, palata with lentil soup, and tofu salad with cucumber, cabbage and chilli sauce (a go-to in Bago when the pantry is sparse).
Address: 4 Kanbae road, Yankin township, Yangon
Hours: 6am-6pm
Contact: 09 960 000447
