Burmese Brunch

We wanted something different to eat during our Lunar New Year holiday so we decided to give Club Rangoon a try with their weekend brunch menu. Being always on a look out for nice new restaurants in town, I have been planning to check this place out for a while and what we have seen on the news recently did put Myanmar (or Burma) in front of my mind – hence our visit during the long weekend. 

Burmese Pop Up

I was intrigued when I found out that The Pansodan from Yangon is opening a pop-up in Hong Kong for a 3-month stint. Food was one thing I found particularly memorable when I travelled to Myanmar for the first time last year, and I was curious how this pop-up will fare combining local and imported ingredients with local Burmese cooking, and given a further twist by this modern-style bistro originally located in one of the busiest streets in downtown Yangon and that happened to be the restaurant’s namesake too.

Restaurant Doubled as Art Gallery

After I bid farewell to my fellow tour group-mates and guide at The Secretariat Building at the end of our morning heritage tour, I followed our original path back to a restaurant called Pansuriya for an early lunch before I left for the airport in the afternoon. The place was quite easy to spot on Bo Galay Zay Street on the eastern side of the city just across the street from the YWCA Building (another heritage structure built in 1902) – the path right outside is almost like a little garden of theirs lined with pots of green plants and the shop sign clearly visible.

Something New from an Unknown Region

Question marks floated over my head when I reached the door of Root Restaurant, a long 15 minute walk to a quiet neighborhood in the eastern side of Yangon. I saw the online reviews of this relatively new restaurant (opened 6 months ago or so) which talked about its specialty of Wa cuisine from Wa ethnic group residing in the mountainous area in the northern side of the country neighboring China. Well I know absolutely nothing about Myanmar geography nor its ethnic composition nor culture, but I was eager to try something new, something that I have not heard of before, let alone trying, so I decided to take a shot. But then when I arrived and found the half-empty restaurant with only a handful customers, I started to wonder whether it’s a good idea.