Myanmar - yes you can visit, see the Gems Museum

I met this gentleman at Vinexpo in Singapore. He is from Myanmar. I thought the country was at war and tourists could not visit it. He tells a different and hopeful story, especially for potential tourists to the country.

Yes, you can still visit it. The capital and country are 70 per cent is safe, and anyway you won't be allowed to visit the army areas. So says Nya.n, That is his first name, they don't have family names. 

He is the sommelier, wine expert, at Seeds, in the capital, Yangon. You  might recall that, once upon a time, Yangon was called Rangoon.

What does this sommelier advise on ordering drinks in his restaurant? When there, you can order a sparkling cocktail.  Local drinks to go with your meal are made from international grapes, planted locally. 

The food will contain local ingredients are lemon grass, p a n d a n  (my spell checker wants to change this to pendant) and Burmese coriander which is different. In your dessert an ingredient might be palm sugar, jaggery. 

Coffee is grown locally, in Shan, state, that is a mountain dry area.  

The national dish is the soup eaten for breakfast.

The dessert 

The dessert contains coconut milk. Pandan and jaggery.

Seeds restaurants based on the idea of the seed pattern, on jewellery which they sell. The atmosphere is tranquil and with Michelin star chef and extra tastes (French word amuse gueles) thrown in for free this is a luxury restaurant with European and international dishes, top service and prices which make it suitable for special occasions such as anniversaries, birthdays, date nights.

After eating breakfast, before eating lunch and dinner, you could visit a pagoda, a Buddha, a gem museum, a synagogue museum a green WW1 and WW2 cemetery..

 

Useful Websites

https://www.seedsyangon.com/gallery/branded-items

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g294191-Activities-Yangon_Rangoon_Yangon_Region.html

Pandan birthday cake - how to welcome visitors to a club with a birthday cake

Pandan cakes are made from the pandan plant. The green colour may be natural or enhanced with food colouring. Many pandan cakes are plain, dry sponge but this birthday cake was different. As you see it has a moist edging like a blancmange.

The covering was solid enough for a candle to be placed on top. The cake came with a small chocolate oval decoration.

It was served to a group of members and visitors at a meeting of Toastmasters International in Toa Payoh. This group meets at either the HDB hub (an easily found skyscraper a short distance from the Toa Payoh MRT (Mass Transit) railway station.

Many of the Singapore groups serve a birthday cake to members who have a meeting that month or fortnight or week, depending how often the group meets. A second popular location for meetings is the Orange Tee building. This is a lot easier to find if you recall that is is facing the public swimming pool, because when you ask the way, more people can direct you to the swimming pool.

One group I visited had found that with only one meeting a month, they almost always had a member with a birthday. Sometimes two or three members had a birthday the same month, if a club had a membership of twenty to sixty.

The cake was brought out, happy birthday was sung, and the cake was divided into sufficient pieces for everybody.

If you are all alone on your birthday, as is often the case with expats abroad, if your partner is travelling, join a Toastmasters club - one where they celebrate birthdays.

You might be concerned not to reveal your birthday or a member's birthday to strangers - even if you trusted the entire group,  the photo may be used on social media. In that case, you can simply celebrate birthdays of people who have a birthday that month.

I was asked by somebody, Is your birthday actually today? On another occasion, a friend in Asia wanted to know my birthday so she could do my horoscope.

So plan  your answer.

In any case, even if it's not known that it's your birthday, you will get a piece of cake!

Apart from the security issue of revealing somebody's birthday, clubs are divided on celebrating brithdays. Soem club committee members don't want the extra expense of providing a cake. They argue that celebrating a birthday has nothing to do with the purpose of the club.

Other clubs feel that it makes members feel welcomed. One of the policies recommended by club advisers called in to help clubs with dwindling membership, is to have parties at Christmas and on other occasions, and to meet evey month or week outside the usual meeing for a lunch or dinner or coffee, or a sporting activity or other social event, just to increase the feeling of belonging and commitment to the club and members.

To Singaporeans a pandan cake is pretty normal. However, to me as a person brought up in Briatin, where an iced heavy fruit cake is the standard, green pandan brithday cake is a novelty, a welcome surprise.

Cakes, which is the durian cake and which is the pandan cake - green or yellow?

Yellow or green? Yes, this yellow cake must be the durian.

The green one in my previous post must have been the durian. 

On top is a kind of cream, a bit like a blancmange. Advantage, more moist than the usual cakes which look like sponge cake. 

You need moisture in Singapore where it is so hot that you are perspiring all the time.

 Underneath is the cake. Maybe the flavour is only in the topping. Even so, not much flavour. Not enough for me. If you are scared of durian, try this. You will wonder what the fuss is about.

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Durian cake in Singapore and durian comparison

I love durian cakes and ice cream although I don't like the fruit. This cake had very little flavour nor aroma. Could not offend. But not sufficiently exciting to make me want to buy it. I did not eat a second piece. Interesting. 

I am glad somebody bought it and I am glad I tried it. Saved me from wasting my money. Oops - I think the green was pandan and the yellow was durian. I also find pandan cakes have almost non-existent flavour which does not match up to the enticing colour.

The Japanese would say, "very subtle flavour". 

I thought the durian season was over, because McDonald's had changed their formely durian flavour McFlurry (flavoured melting ice cream in a drink carton) 'drink' flavours to strawberry and chocolate. Flavour of the month.

 I asked an assistant and she thought her branch changed every two months. I presume although they have some autonomy that the bulk buying of McDonalds meant the same flavours were available to all branches. You either stock it or you don't.

I have to say nobody else has supplied a durian flavour to match the one from McDonatds which I tried and wrote about previously.

Green Tea and Green Cakes In Asia

Problems
The first thing I noticed when offered cakes in Singapore and Asia is that cakes are often green. My face turns green to match the cakes. What is this?

Answers
Is green such an unusual colour for sweetmeats? In the UK we have green pistachio ice cream. Fruits are coloured green: greengages, green grapes. Green on the outside apples. Nowadays we have kiwi fruit.

However most green fruit is unripe. Green strawberries? Er - no thanks.

Green Pandan
When I first tasted green pandan cake I was expecting exquisite, richly-flavoured and slightly grainy filling pistacho, with its nutty addition of protein. I was very disappointed with pandan. Like green sponge cake, but no butter nor anything rich. Like candy floss, and sponge cake, both of which disappointed me as a child, just a big piece of air-filled nothing which disappears in your mouth.

However, I later discovered that some green cakes were appealing. The Japanese like green tea and subtle flavours. Green tea is supposed to be good for you, anti-oxidants, fighting cancer? Not just food colouring but a natural colour and flavour, closer to the natural world and natural unchanged goodness, freshness.

I discovered my two favourites, bean curd paste, and sweet green paste in buns.

Green Buns

Green Cake

Photos by Angela Lansbury, copyright.

The green cake is from Yamazaki, Boulangerie Chaude.

Author
Angela Lansbury