There are few better ways to explore Yangon than by eating your way through the city — and when food blogger and travel filmmaker Luke Martin of Chopstick Travel came to Myanmar, that is exactly what we decided to do.
Luke is known for travelling the world in search of authentic local food, particularly the street food, markets, family-run restaurants and little-known dishes that tell the story of a place. So when he asked Sa Ba Street Food Tours to show him around Yangon, we knew we had a serious food mission on our hands!
In the end, a three day food tour turned into three videos exploring three very different sides of Yangon and Myanmar's food culture.
And, unsurprisingly, there was a lot of eating involved.
Food blogger Luke Martin of Chopstick Travel joined Sa Ba Street Food Tours to explore Yangon’s cuisine and culture.
Working with Luke was a fantastic reminder of why we started Sa Ba in the first place.
We don't simply want to take visitors to a restaurant and tell them what a particular dish is called. We want people to understand why Myanmar food tastes the way it does, where the dishes come from, who makes them and what they tell us about the people and places of Myanmar.
That means getting off the main tourist routes, meeting the people who make the food, visiting markets and small family-run businesses, and — most importantly — eating the food that we genuinely love.
Luke was certainly not afraid to eat, either!
Across three videos we explored noodles, breakfast dishes, tea shops, markets, street snacks and nighttime food, giving his viewers a taste of just how much there is to discover in Yangon.
And perhaps that is the biggest takeaway from the three videos:
Myanmar food is far more diverse than many people realise.
There are regional cuisines, ethnic traditions, Chinese and Indian influences, colonial influences and generations of Burmese culinary traditions — all coming together on the streets of Yangon.
So if you're planning a trip to Myanmar and wondering where to begin with the food, our advice is simple:
Come hungry.
We'll take care of the rest.
