10 Second Kitchen - Deep Fried Tofu on Lanmadaw Street

 Watching the tofu carefully fry along the Lanmadaw St in Yangon, Myanmar.

10 Second Kitchen - Pomelo Street Vendor Downtown Yangon

 Watching a woman carefully peel the last bit of bitter peel off of a Pomelo in downtown Yangon, Myanmar.

10 Second Kitchen - Street Tandoori Oven Yangon, Myanmar

 Watching hand made naan being made on the streets of  Yangon in Myanmar. 

10 Second Kitchen - Street Tea Yangon, Myanmar

 Watching a pot boil at a street market in Yangon, Myanmar.

10 Second Kitchen - Deep Fried Pancake 16th Street Yangon

 A 10 second look at a deep fried breakfast pancake in Yangon, Mynamar.

Quick Street Pancake

 A quick pancake made on the street in downtown Yangon, Myanmar.

CC

Myanmar Days

 In this latest episode of Junk Fud on the Road, Allison and Chris talk about some of the foods, treats and snacks they've discovered over their first few months of living in Myanmar.

CC

Chocolate Spread From Myanmar - Is It Better Than Nutella Part 1

 

I'm a big fan of chocolate spreads. While I was brought up on Nutella, I don't know if it's truly the best on out there. It's probably the most famous of them all, and I've written about it many times on this blog. Nutella has become so popular that many people refer to all chocolate spreads as "Nutella". A few times on this blog I've also pointed out some alternatives to Nutella, some better and some not so great. The thing that most people don't realize is that there are many chocolate spreads that are different than Nutella. In particular some great chocolate spreads that don't use the same ingredients, like some with no hazelnuts at all.

Today for example I tried a really interesting chocolate spread from Myanmar. As you can see by the giant sticker on the jar, they're very proud of the fact that it's made locally. I learned recently that Myanmar actually grows their own cocoa beans, and there's a budding chocolate business here. Interestingly, because it's such a small crop in Myanmar, most of the chocolate products made with Myanamar chocolate are made by local companies. The great thing about these local companies is that they really think about the ingredients they use. This chocolate spread for example contains few ingredients, and doesn't use palm oil at all. I'm also pretty certain there's no nuts added to it either, so unlike Nutella it's just a chocolate spread and not a chocolate hazelnut spread.

The best way I can describe this spread is that it's a coconut oil spread with a chocolate flavour. It took me a little while to get used to the coconut oil flavour, as it's a lot more powerful than a palm oil, but after a little while I really started to enjoy it. It's not as sweet tasting as Nutella, but it is very unique. While I don't know if I like it more than Nutella, I love that it's around and that they offer something so different. I would recommend that anyone with the means to give it a try, even if just to have something different.

CC

Cereal Innovation or Waste of Packaging

 I recently came across a new cereal. It's likely not new to the world, but it's very new to me. It grabbed my attention because it offered some new fruity flavours that I'd never had in a cereal before, papaya and pineapple. The package implies that the fruit is also real, which makes sense given how common these fruits are where this cereal is made, which is Myanmar. The panda is also very cute, so  since I needed something for breakfast, this seemed like the perfect fit.

Upon opening the box I was even more confused/surprised by what was inside. It's not often that the format of how cereal is delivered is surprising to me. Rather than give you one giant bag of cereal, they've portioned the cereal into 5 separate bags. Better still they've separated the fruit and portioned that into another 5 separate bags. I wasn't sure if this was a brilliant idea at first, or an extreme waste of packaging. My first guess was that they split the cereal into separate packages to help it stay fresh and keep bugs out. South East Asia (where this cereal sells) is known for being very humid and also having a lot of bugs. Both of these are due to the constant warm weather in the area, so it makes sense as a way to keep your cereal fresh.

I took my single portion of cereal and I was truly excited by the cute little packages.

The writing on the bags of cereal was a little weird.

The cereal portion was a little strange. I was expecting something like corn flakes, but instead got what looking like tiny little squashed circles. They also had some kind of sweet coating on the outside. Frankly I would have been satisfied with just these, but there was more.

I opened up my little bag of dried pineapple and papaya and they were nicely chopped into tiny little cubes. I definitely felt like the ratio of cereal to fruit was pretty good. Too much of either would have ruined this cereal experience. Adding the milk however proved to me another reason why one might break this cereal into individual portions in particularly with the fruit.

The second I added my milk, all of the fruit sunk to the bottom. It made me think that the same would have happened in the box, had it not been portioned out in little separate bags. I had to dig down to the bottom of the bowl for each bite, however my bowl had a perfect proportion of cereal and fruit. I'll be honest, I wasn't totally blown away with the flavour of this cereal, it was fine. The little disks did stay very crunchy in the milk however, almost too crunchy as they didn't seem to let any of the milk penetrate at all. There are a few other cereals made by this company, and I think I'll probably attempt to try them all. 

At a certain age you don't really expect to be surprised at the way cereal is packaged, but as it turns out, you never know.

CC