Ben de la Cruz/NPR
Ben de la Cruz/NPR
Ben de la Cruz/NPR
Ben de la Cruz/NPR
Ben de la Cruz/NPR
Ben de la Cruz/NPR
Ben de la Cruz/NPR
Ben de la Cruz/NPR
Ben de la Cruz/NPR
Early in daily life, Myat Thu knew that his destiny as a cook lay in salads. Not the light, leafy green salads that are so typical in American dining establishments, but weighty, hearty Burmese salads.
Myat Thu grew up in Burma, also regarded as Myanmar. He was just 14 when his mother placed him in charge of generating dinner. Unsure of what to prepare, he studied the salad vendors on the streets of Rangoon.
The gals would lay out the components on the cart in front of him cabbage, sprouts, peanuts, garlic, shallots, green chilies. He'd observe as the gals would chop and toss every thing together, drizzle in lime or fish sauce or sesame oil. "I find out from them, mostly," he says.
As a university pupil, Myat Thu's awareness turned to political activism. He was portion of the 1988 nationwide protests that have been brutally crushed by the Burmese military. Two many years later on he was forced to flee the nation on foot for Thailand.
Enlarge image 1 of the restaurant's most popular dishes is the Burmese green tea leaf salad with crunchy fried nuts.
1 of the restaurant's most well-liked dishes is the Burmese green tea leaf salad with crunchy fried nuts.
Initially, he joined other Burmese exiles and activists in Bangkok but sooner or later made the decision to move to Mae Sot, a tiny city on the Thai side of the border. And gradually he opened his restaurant, Aiya.
The menu contains Indian curries and Thai noodles, but his marquee items are fresh Burmese salads.
1 of the most well-known is a green tea leaf salad topped with crunchy fried soy nuts. There's a green mango salad with chili. The ginger salad is a mix of shredded cabbage and raw ginger tinged with lime and garlic. The aubergene salad is warm chunks of tender, smoked eggplant mixed with crisp slivers of onion.
He says the critical to the fantastic salad is stability. The quantity of onion ought to be just ideal. The ratio of cabbage to ginger has to be precise.
"The portion [of each ingredient] that you use is crucial," he says. " That's what can make the difference among folks who make fantastic salads and bad salads."
His restaurant, on the other hand, is about a lot more than just producing the excellent salad. Aiya is the operate of a revolutionary. Portraits of Che Guevara and Aung San Suu Kyi appear down from the balcony. Paintings of Burmese street scenes line the walls. Bumper stickers declare "Peace in Burma Now."
Final yr, elections in Myanmar put an end to five decades of oppressive military rule in the resource - rich nation. The U.S. has sent in an ambassador. President Obama is even paying out the former pariah state a pay a visit to, a move that would have been unthinkable just two many years ago.
Myat Thu has been cautiously viewing the the latest, quick, political reforms in his homeland. But he says he even now does not trust the government there.
"I hope this is not a game that the regime has been playing," he says.
Enlarge image Myat Thu owns Aiya, a restaurant in Mae Sot, Thailand.
Myat Thu owns Aiya, a restaurant in Mae Sot, Thailand.
And he worries that it could be dangerous for longtime critics of the authorities like himself to return, " because there are nonetheless a good deal of political prisoners in diverse prisons within Burma."
He follows the political modifications in Myanmar carefully. He sees the restaurant as a type of a dissident's salon, a Burmese Bohemia, a area wherever the opposition in exile can gather.
And they do. On a Friday evening, Aiya bustles with lifestyle. The restaurant has become preferred with Western expatriates as properly as Burmese exiles.
In front of the bar, a Burmese folk singer with prolonged, gray hair is strumming out Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind."
Patrons share major green bottles of Chang beer. Waiters dressed in T-shirts and jeans shuttle modest plates of curries and salads out of the kitchen.
Myat Thu mingles with the diners. He shakes a percussive rattle behind the folk singer. He opines about the regime next door in Rangoon. And he flits in and out of the kitchen. "When you cook and folks appreciate your meals," he says, "you are incredibly pleased."
Myat Thu has built a daily life in Thailand. His wife is Thai, and he brags that her very best dish is a rich curried chicken in peanut sauce called panang. But in the end Myat Thu still yearns for residence. "I hope one day," he says, "I will run a restaurant in Rangoon."
He just does not know when that may be.
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