Lephet, or fermented tea leaves, is perhaps the most famous Burmese dish. The tart leaves are eaten on their own as a dessert, but they're also served as part of a pickled tea-leaf salad called lephet thoke.

The sour, slightly bitter leaves are mixed by hand with shredded cabbage, sliced tomatoes, crunchy deep-fried beans, nuts, and peas, a splash of garlic oil, and pungent chili and garlic slices to make the dish.

The dish is adaptable. It can be a snack, an appetizer, or a meal when served with rice. It's also a stimulant, according to the Burmese, who claim that eating too much lephet thoke prevents sleep.

To make the Tea Leaf Salad, shredded small cabbage, cherry tomatoes, crispily fried beans, nuts and peas, oil and garlic, sliced filets, spicy pepper, and garlic are mixed by hand. Myanmar cuisine is adaptable. It can be a snack, an appetizer, or a meal when served with rice. However, this popular Myanmar dish is also known as a stimulant because it can make you sleepy. As a result, you should avoid eating too much lephet thoke.

Shan rice is a rice dish that is one of Myanmar's most popular dishes. This Shan (one of the country's main Buddhist ethnic groups) dish, known in Burmese as nga htamin (fish rice), combines rice that has been cooked with turmeric and squashed into a disk with a topping of freshwater fish flakes and garlic oil.

When served with sides of leek roots, raw garlic cloves, and deep-fried pork rinds, nga htamin transforms into a pungent and spicy snack.

Another version of Shan rice is Nga Htamin Chin - rice kneaded into round balls with tomato, potato, and fish. Crisp fried onion in oil, tamarind sauce, coriander, and spring onions, often with garlic, are served on top. As side dishes, there are fried Chinese chives roots (ju myit), fried whole dried chili, grilled dried fermented soya bean cakes, and fried dried tofu snacks.

In Burmese cuisine, ngapi is a pungent paste made from either fish or shrimp. Ngapi is typically made by fermenting salted and ground fish or shrimp before drying. It can be distinguished from cheese by the main ingredient and region of origin. The type of fish used to make ngapi can be distinguished.

Ngapi can be made from whole fish (like ngapi kaung), small fish (hmyin ngapi), or prawns (hmyin ngapi) (seinza ngapi). Ngapi is a staple of Lower Burmese cuisine, appearing in almost every dish as a condiment or additive. With a few exceptions, raw ngapi is not intended for direct consumption. Fermented seafood pastes, such as Malay belacan and Thai kapi and pla ra, Lao padaek, and Khmer prahok, are common in Southeast Asian cuisines.

If you visit a traditional Myanmar restaurant or booth, you should expect more than just a meal; you should expect a cooking demonstration.

Curry is the most important element in Burmese cuisine, as its name suggests, but once you've decided on one – usually a meaty curry with a little oil on pork, fish, shrimp, beef, or lamb – it's clear that endless additional dishes will follow.

Tea shops in Myanmar aren't just for sipping tiny cups of sweet, milky tea. They also serve as a crash course in Myanmar's various cuisines, with dishes reflecting the ethnicity of the shop's proprietor.

Traditional Burmese noodle or rice dishes, such as htamin thoke, a type of rice salad, can be found in tea shops run by ethnic Burmese.

South Asian-influenced deep-fried savory snacks, such as samosas or poori (deep-fried bread served with a potato curry), or baked breads, such as nanbya, are common in Indian/Muslim-owned tea shops (naan). Desserts in the style of South Asia are frequently served at the latter.

Baked sweets, meaty steamed buns, and dim sum-like items are common in Chinese-owned tea shops.

In contrast, the sweet West Burma dish known as "muon" is not served as a dessert but as an appetizer. It is considered one of Myanmar's best foods and is traditionally served with tea in the morning or afternoon.

And, unlike candy in other parts of Southeast Asia, Muon is a unique Myanmar food made with sweet ingredients such as coconut, coconut milk, rice flour, cooked glutinous rice, tapioca, and fruit rather than sugar.

Burmese sweets include hsa nwin, crispy semolina flour biscuits with coconut milk, butter, and raisins; and moun bein and moun pyit thalet, Burmese-style crepes with a consistency hole and a consistency similar to a wet crepe English.

Myanmar cuisine has a wide variety of fried foods in oil – it is nearly impossible to avoid fried foods in Myanmar.

The vast majority of snacks found on the street or in tea shops -- samosas, spring rolls, savory fritters, sweets, breads -- are deep-fried, and many noodle dishes are topped with akyaw, deep-fried crispy garnishes.One deep-fried dish particularly worth seeking out is buthi kyaw, battered and deep-fried chunks of gourd.

Fried Buthi Kyaw, battered and fried pieces of pumpkin, is a particular type of Myanmar food that is well worth trying. Pumpkin donuts are usually served with a sweet bitter / tamarind-based dipping sauce that can be made with the addition of tasty bean powder when the crust is warm.

Shan noodles or Shan khao swé are a satisfying and easy dish to prepare from Myanmar.Shan noodles are now a favorite in the Land of Golden Pagodas, although it is more common in the Mandalay region as well as the Shan state, where it originated. Shan is the easternmost state of Myanmar. It borders China, Thailand and Laos, which explains why variants of the Shan noodles recipe are popular in the Chinese Yunnan province as well as Chiang Mai in Thailand

Hto-hpu-nwe, also known as "warm tofu," is one of Myanmar's most well-known dishes. It is one of Myanmar's most popular dishes among the Shan ethnic group. The dish consists of a thick porridge made from chickpea flour rather than tofu.

Thin rice noodles, marinated pork or chicken chunks, and the sticky yellow substance are served with it. It has a layer of chili oil on top and is made up of pickled vegetables and broth. It's an unusual pairing that's visually stunning, but if you like savory flavors, it'll grow on you.

Burmese cuisine is known for its diversity, thanks to influences from neighboring regions that help to create fusion dishes across the country. Nangyi Thoke is a popular breakfast dish among the locals. This specialty, which consists of thick rice noodles mixed with specially prepared chicken curry, is available in almost every restaurant in Myanmar.

"Dry" noodle dishes, which combine broth and salad served on the side with noodles, are one of Myanmar's most delicious and tastiest foods, with nangyi thoke being the most popular.

Thick round rice noodles with chicken, thin slices of fish cake, boiled bean sprouts, and slices of hard-boiled eggs characterize this type of Myanmar cuisine. The ingredients are seasoned with roasted chickpea flour, turmeric, and chili oil, then tossed by hand and served with garnishes and broth.