Grilled Sticky Rice

This is a thai street food that I really love. It’s extremely cheap and a pleasant way to fill up without upsetting your tummy. Also, slightly charred, super crispy rice is a guilty pleasure which I relish.

Chrysanthemum Bread

There is a stand in Itaewon that sells various Korean street snacks.  Y’all know the one– it’s the lady who’s more-or-less right in front of Dunkin Donuts.  Anyway, I guess I’ve never really paid close enough attention to what she puts in her Chrysanthemum Bread because one day, I had three concurrent thoughts: (1) That sounds like it could be interesting, (2) It would be good for the blog, and (3) I’m going to order some.

This was only a good idea if you like those pastry-like things that are shaped like fish and filled with red beans, because, in reality, that is exactly what Chrysanthemum Bread in Itaewon is, and I’d just never noticed that this ajumma was putting red bean filling in her treats.  Delicious, but only if you like pastries filled with red bean filling.

Hoddeok

This is one of my all-time favourite snacks in Korea.  You can really only get it from street vendors, which means it’s getting harder and harder to find as street vendors are getting more and more sparse in Korea as Korea becomes an ever richer country, but I think it’s delicious.  It’s just the right amount of greasy and sweet.  It’s seriously one of my favourite things ever.  Mmmmmm…

Stuffed and Deep Fried Peppers, Street Food Edition

 

Korean street food used to be a lot more abundant and a lot cheaper than it is now.  But it’s still there if you know where to look, and it’s still cheaper than any other food you can get in Korea.

Away we go down memory lane….

When I first moved to Korea nine years ago, I didn’t have much money *and* I was trying to pay off student loans, so I was really trying to live as cheaply as possible.  Couple that with the fact that I genuinely did think the street food was tasty and the fact that I love greasy things (have you not noticed how many junk food / fast food posts I’ve made?!), and also with the fact that I found the a la carte nature of Korean street food charming (you used to just stand there and eat, and then, when you were finished, tell the woman at the stand how many pieces you had eaten and she would tell you what you owed), and I ate Korean street food at least two or three times a week for lunch.  One piece of deep-fried goodness used to be 200 or 300 won, so I could eat lunch for a dollar back in the day!  Whee!

Mohinga

 

I’ve mentioned before that Burmese food is not my favourite cuisine.  However, I did really enjoy mohinga.  Mohinga is a type of soup with rice noodles in a fish broth with vegetables.  Often, the vendors have a kind of deep-fried corn cracker which you can pay extra to have added to your mohinga.  When the vendors serve you the mohinga, there are sides of coriander, dried red chili flakes, and lime wedges, which you can add to taste.  Burmese people do NOT like spicy food, so they were always horrified by the amount of red chili flakes that I added to my mohinga, but I liked it just fine.  

If you go to Burma and are aghast by the prices there, you will be able to eat cheaply and just fine on mohinga.  It usually runs about 400 kyats (about 50 cents) per serving, and that includes a free refill of broth plus, depending on the vendor, unlimited tea. 

Portable Restaurant

I posted a photo awhile ago of a woman in Bangkok who used a yoke to be a roving som tam vendor.  Here in Yangon, there are a lot more roving street vendors that use yokes.  Most of them sell mohinga (I think).

Tripey Treats

Here is an example of something I never ate when I lived in Burma.  I saw street vendors boiling up tripe quite often, but I never had the stomach fo actually trying any of it.  Actually, it smelled pretty good, but every damn time I got close enough to see what it was, I had to keep on walking.  That’s all for today, folks!

Watermelons

I’ve talked about some out there tropical fruit like durians and dragonfruit.  I’ve talked about some tropical fruit which isn’t as out there but is either scarce or expensive in most western countries, like mangoes are.  But I’ve never talked about a fruit that is considered normal in North America.  Nothing is as quintessential to a summer barbecue or picnic in North America as a big slice of watermelon.  What makes the watermelons in Burma feel so foreign, reminding you that you are, in fact, in a distant land, eating fruit grown in distant lands, is the sheer quantity of the fruit which the vendors have piled behind them.

Sugar Cane Juice

I feel almost hypocritical posting about sugar cane juice: I never tried any for the entire three years that I lived in Burma.  A serious bout of amoebic dysentery immediately after arriving in the country left me pretty wary of pretty much any Burmese street food.  But I regret not ever trying the sugar cane juice from this vendor.  He was always set up right outside of the entrance to my apartment building; I’d just walk right past.  And as much as I tell people now about how I lived in a slum in Burma (I really did), it was vendors like the sugar cane vendor that ensured that I secretly really did like my neighbourhood.

Third World Burgers

My friend knew that I was interested in starting a blog about all the burgers in Yangon, so he took me around for a little preliminary “research” awhile back.  Outside of one of the supermarkets, we found this little gem.  There were two patties on it.  The top paty was maybe pork.  Or possibly chicken.  Hell it could have been beef.  It really could have been antyhing.  There was lettuce.  And cucumbers.  And a funky sauce.  The bottom patty was either a patty of deep-fried fish or a patty of deep-fried potato.  I really couldn’t tell.  If you don’t want to pay a lot of money for nice food and instead would like to get by spending very little in Burma, THIS is what very little money buys you in Yangon.  Bon appetit, britches!