Yanant Thit Burmese Chinese Restaurant @ Little Myanmar Peninsula Plaza

Starting my hunt for Myanmese food in Singapore today. The first step of my Myanmese journey 😄

Restaurant name: Yanant Thit Restaurant

Address: #B1-07C, 111 North Bridge Rd, Singapore 179098 (shop inside Peninsula Plaza)

Nearest MRT: 5 minute walk from City Hall station

Tel: 6837 2575

Hours: 9:00am - 9:00pm

There are about ten Myanmese food stalls and restaurants at the basement of Peninsula Plaza. I am going to work through all of them starting with Yanant Thit Myanmar Chinese Food.

Yanant Thit is an economic rice / chup chai png / cai fun type of set up. It's a good place for me to start my Burmese food in Singapore explorations (as I was here alone today).

This is just a partial selection of over a dozen dishes in the display.

I speak no Myanmese and the staff spoke no English or Chinese. So, ordering had to be done the international finger pointing "👉 zhe ge 👉 na ge" way. (Actually, I feel more assured of authenticity when the staff spoke only Myanmese and no Chinese or English 😬 ) 

These were the dishes I got - all these for S$9.50. Let's run through the dishes clockwise from the left.

I enjoyed this lightly stir fried vegetable dish. The greens were crunchy, juicy and had a slight grassy taste. This was overlaid by a nutty subtly tangy sweet sauce. The dominant flavour was nutty.

The accompanying, complimentary soup was tangy savoury. It was appetising, and I liked it when splashed over rice as it complemented the grains' sweetness.

I chose this fried catfish because I am a catfish lover. But, this wasn't what I expected. At first, I tried to pull the flesh from the bones but soon realised that they were deep fried until everything fused together into one solid piece 😬 So, I chewed the whole piece of stiff fried fish which was leathery outside and inside it was dry, almost like a floss. The spine and head were stiff but chewable (not crisp). The smaller bones were hardly noticeable. It tasted savoury with a bit of spiciness from the fried chili which the deep fried catfish was stir fried in. I enjoyed this.

I pointed at this because I was attracted to its fiery red colour. It was yellow peas (split peas) and cubes of beef in spices. I like the savoury sweet soft peas. The beef cubes were, however, chewy stiff and didn't have much flavour on their own. The spices were very mild despite its intimidating look.

See! Everything gone! Not even the fish bones and head 😬 I find this first foray into Burmese food in Singapore interesting and will continue my exploration. Please tell me where else I should go for the taste of Myanmar in Singapore. Where can I get excellent mohinga, Myanmar's national dish? I will be most grateful 🙏

  

Written by Tony Boey on 9 Jun 2022