Burmese Cooking in Inle Lake (Nyaung Shwe), Myanmar, June 2-4 2015

In Nyaung Shwe we mainly rested and relaxed after trekking for 3 days and didn't do much aside from sampling delicious food at local stalls and the "night market" (really just a row of a few outdoor restaurants, but the food is cheap and good!). We decide to skip the boat tour on the lake which is popular among tourists thinking our boat ride the day before was enough. We booked a bus to Hsipaw for the following afternoon and decided to sign up for a cooking class together with our new friend Liron with the highly recommended Bamboo Delight Cooking School (20$ per person) run by the lovely Leslie and Sue, who use a percentage of their profits towards various charitable causes in the local community (more info on their facebook page).

We met with Lesley at 8:30 am for a visit to the local market. We were lucky because it happened to be the day when the market hosts other vendors from villages around (every five days) so the place was super busy and bustling and we enjoyed walking around learning about the different fruits, vegetables and spices and trying out new things. Lesley was very attentive and involved us in planning what to cook, and accepted all our special requests with no hesitations. We decided to cook mostly vegan and one fish dish, including a local flower salad that we tried on our trek from Kalaw.

the local edible flowers we recognized from out trek 

After the market we headed to the kitchen to start cooking and were very impressed by the clean, organized and well-equipped facilities, where everything was ready for us including spices and condiments beautifully laid out. After a delicious snack of rice crispies with peanut sauce we divided up the dishes and got to work. We ended up making 8 dishes between the three of us with Lesley's close guidance and help as well as assistance from the other staff members. We had a wonderful time cooking together and learning about Myanmar cuisine, and everything turned out so yummy! Our menu included tea leaf salad, tomato salad, jackfruit salad, eggplant salad, flower salad, vegetable stir-fry, and steamed fish dumplings in banana leaves. For dessert we were served frozen mango slices, and as simple as it sounds it was simply amazing!

We stayed a while to relax after all the food and had a lovely chat with Lesley, who also gave us each a bag of spices and all the recipes we made (plus other recipes) to take home. It was really a great experience and I highly recommend it for anyone in Inle Lake. The whole day as just perfect and I think Lesley and Sue do a great job and offer such a well-planned cooking classes with amazing attention to details which is felt in everything from the colorful aprons to the charming cloth bag the spices were in. Happy and stuffed we left Bamboo delight grabbed our bags from the hotel and hopped on a 3:30 pm bus to Hsipaw.