Rakhine Seafood Feast at Minn Lan Restaurant in Yangon, Myanmar

Probably one of the most well known restaurants in Yangon, Myanmar, is Minn Lan. Read the full post here:
Minn Lan is a restaurant in Yangon, Myanmar, that specializes in serving seafood from the Rakhine state of Myanmar (it’s the state that runs along the western coastline of the country). When I asked in a video, here on my YouTube channel, about where to eat on my recent trip to Yangon, Minn Lan was a suggestion I received a number of times - so I made it a point to eat there.
There are a number of Minn Lan restaurant locations throughout Yangon, but we went to the location along the Inya Lake, on Parami Road. The menu is pretty easy to order from as it’s written in both English and Burmese, and there’s also tempting photos to help order. The ordering wasn’t hard because of the English, but it was mainly hard because there were so many choices! Basically they have every type of seafood you can imagine, cooked in numerous different ways.
I probably got a little overly excited, and Ying and I ended up ordering probably a bit more than we should have. The first thing we ordered was a plate of tiger prawns BBQ. The giant prawns were skewered on sticks, and then grilled (but to me they tasted sort of deep fried?), so I’m not sure exactly how they were cooked, and served with a pile of deep fried garlic on top. After peeling the prawn, I then dipped it into the green chili sauce, and it was delicious. The prawn was juicy and meaty, and the sauce was spicy and salty.
The manager who took our order, suggested we try the Rakhine style noodles, so I did resist. I decided to order the soup on the side, and the noodles came cold (which was a surprise to me at first), along with pieces of fish cake, a fish soup on the side, and garnished with sprigs of cilantro. It was quite tasty, but I think I would have liked it hot instead of cold.
Moving on, I also ordered squid stir fried with garlic. There was so much garlic in the dish, and it was almost caramelized onto the squid, and blackened. It really kind of tasted like candied squid. It was quite tasty, but maybe a little one the sweet side for me. Probably the ultimate dish or our meal was the Rakhine style curry crab, a huge plate of crab stewed in a sour and spicy sauce. What I immediately loved about it was that it wasn’t oily at all. The curry sauce was thickened with an egg, and it had a wonderful sour and fresh flavor to it. Along with the crab, there were cucumbers, carrots, onions, and a few other assorted veggies. The crab was sweet and meaty, and the sauce went well with it.
Finally, to wrap up our order, I decided to get a pomfret fish, curried in Rakhine spicy style. I had no idea how it was going to be, but it turned out to be one of my favorite dishes of the meal. The fish was first fried, and then topped in a curry sauce that was mostly tomato and onion based. It was salty, and so good. After all the food came I realized that I didn’t really order any vegetable dishes, I so decided to order a plate or Rakhine salad (not sure the exact name, but that’s what it was called on the menu). The salad was a combination of a vegetable like morning glory, plus lots of mushrooms, and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. It was a wonderful vegetable dish to go with all the Myanmar seafood dishes.
I fully enjoyed our meal at Minn Lan restaurant in Yangon. The food and the service was both wonderful, and I thought the prices were very good value. Even in Bangkok, for what we ordered, the price could have been double.
Total price for everything - 20,000 Kyats ($20.13)
Address: Parami Road, Yangon, Yangon Region, Myanmar
Open hours: 11 am – 9 pm daily
Music in this video is from AudioNetwork.com
Thank you very much for watching this video, I hope you enjoyed it.
Mark Wiens is an eater at: &
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