I love night markets, they are the best places to sample the local street food.

When I was doing research for this Myanmar trip, this article caught my attention. A night market in Yangon? I definitely have to check it out.

According to the article, Yangon Night Market is supposed to stretch from “Strand Road in Pabedan Township to Kyauktada”. But when we were there, there were only stalls from Sule Road to Lanmadaw Street along the side of Strand Road. There were supposed to have a mixture of food, retail and entertainment, but we only saw food and fruit stalls.

Let me introduce you to the food you can expect at Yangon Night Market. 

Pork Stick

It’s an understatement that Burmese people love their pork. My Myanmar colleague literally lit up at the mention of pork sticks. You can find pork stick everywhere in Yangon and Mandalay.

Pork sticks are round or square metal containers with a pot of pork soup in the middle. The owner cuts pieces of different parts pork and cooks them in the soup. These are then laid neatly on the metal grill at the edge of the pot. You can eat any part of the pig – skin, tongue, cartilage, trachea, liver, lung, spleen … Each stick costs K50 – K100 (the sticks with a bent end costs K100). When you have eaten your fill, the owner will count and let you know how much to pay in total. I ate 30+ sticks and I only paid K3000 (the owner gave me a “tourist discount”). 

Pork sticks is a delicious and inexpensive street food (it’s only S$0.05 – S$0.10 per stick), no wonder it is so popular with the Burmese people. 

Couple Snack

These cute snacks are made of rice flour. They are called “couple snack” because two of these round disks are stacked together to make the plain ones.

There are also ones with quail egg and chickpeas, but I personally prefer the plain ones.

Grilled Seafood

This should be pretty straightforward, just point at the seafood that you want and they will grill it for you.
All the seafood looked very fresh.

Fried Fishballs and Fried Fishcake

These fried fishballs and fish cakes are much smaller than the ones commonly found in Singapore. These bite-size fishballs and fishcakes are a little salty but fun to munch on. 

Shan Noodles

This noodle dish originated from the Shan state in Myanmar, hence its name.
It is a simple dish where chicken or pork cooked in tomatoes, is served over a bed of rice noodles. Shan noodles are also typically served with pickled mustard greens (monnyinjin), and sometimes with fried chickpea tofu (tohu nway).

Fruits

There are stall after stall selling fresh fruits. The fruits are much cheaper and fresher than the ones in Singapore.

There’s so much more to eat at Yangon Night Market. These are just a few of the street food I saw.

I hope Yangon Night Market will continue to grow into the tourist attraction it was meant to be. Until then, Yangon Night Market is a good place to sample Myanmar street food. ”