A wide variety of traditional snack foods is available from street vendors in Yangon.

EATING snacks, or tha yae sar as they are called in Myanmar, has always been a favourite pastime here. Myanmar people often indulge in snacks at mealtimes, but also in the late afternoon around Western teatime.

Although a wide array of snacks is still available in Yangon, however, it is becoming less and less common to find traditional shops that offer more than one item. Still, the lack of variety does not seem to be breaking locals’ die-hard snacking habit.

The snacking fixation starts in childhood: Myanmar parents urge their children to take a nap after lunch, and even if the kids are not sleepy, they give a good effort in the hopes of earning a snack when they wake up.

And what a range of snacks there is – the variety is so extensive that trying to describe them all would take days. Most snacks do have one thing in common, though: Rice being a staple food in Myanmar, the majority are rice-based. Many are sweetened with jaggery and topped with a few slices of coconut.

Favourite snacks include bein mont, a round cake of pounded rice topped with crushed sesame seeds or slices of coconut. Others include mon lak kaut, a long doughnut-like cake, and mon phet htoke, a sticky-rice cake wrapped in a banana leaf. Ethnic food is also popular, including Shan noodles, Rakhine mont ti (rice vermicelli and fish soup) and Mandalay mee shay and mohingha.

Snacks like these are cheap, delicious, nutritious and safe to eat, but fewer people are eating them these days. It may be because food stalls that sell real Myanmar snacks are becoming increasingly rare.

There are dozens of snack shops in downtown Yangon, but most specialise in just one item, such as bein mont or mohingha. Some snack peddlers work outlying areas of the city on foot, but are not often seem downtown.

The big favourite is clearly mohingha, which can be found in shops all over Yangon. Many people here consider Myaung Mya Daw Cho, Khin Htwe Yee and Tin Tin Aye (Htaik Tan) to be the tastiest mohinga shops in the city.

But what to do if you want to sample more than one kind of snack? Head to Shwe Yi tea shop in Sangyoung township. One of the rare places that still offers a range of treats, Shwe Yi has about 10 snacks on its menu. The shop is small, but neat and clean. From the time he opened the shop about five years ago, owner U Mg Mg Than has sold only Myanmar snacks and tea.

“When I told my friends that I wanted to sell only Myanmar snacks, they thought it would be a big risk and that it would be hard for me to succeed,” he said.

“They said I should be patient and make a name for myself with just one item.”

“But when people started coming to my shop, they kept asking if ei kyar kwe, sa mu sar or nan pyar were available. When I said ‘no’, some of them just left and never came back,” he added.

With its extensive menu and affordable prices (K50 to K350), Shwe Yi attracts a broad spectrum of people. On weekdays, people usually come for breakfast or during teatime. On the weekend, people come with big groups of family or friends to enjoy these special snacks.

Open all day, every day, the shop also caters snacks for housewarming and donation ceremonies.

U Mg Mg Than prides himself on using no saccharin, no monosodium glutamate and no palm oil, and the menu includes everything from mont bine taunt and san win makin to kyauk ba taung platar taut and nan gyi thaut. Rice with peas or dried fish is also available.

Another famous snack spot is the restaurant in the Karaweik Palace Hotel, where snacks like mont okkalay and kauk nyin paung are always available.

Have a craving for something special? You can order anything you like in advance for events like birthdays and weddings.

Traditional Shan food is also a big hit in Yangon. Throughout the city, Shan people operate food stalls offering rice-based delights like Shan noodles, mee shay, san se, san pyar and tofu nway. Many people spice their Shan snacks with pounded chili and mon nyin chin (carrot and mustard sauce).

Like many other local snacks, those from Shan State are delicious, nutritious and cheap. No Shan dish will run you more than K1000.

Another favourite in Yangon are Rakhine mont tee shops, where the specialty of the house is rice noodles in a spicy fish broth. When people are feeling sick or worn-out, they often order Rakhine mont tee or mont tee thoke. Because mont tee is hot and spicy, many believe it helps those who eat it sweat out their illnesses.

Though it may seem that Yangon is overflowing with snack options, the truth is that nowadays people are not as familiar with the vast range of Myanmar snacks. Many have not tried everything that is available here, preferring to stick with the basics.

But for the curious—and those with a bottomless appetite—Yangon is a snacker’s paradise. If only more people realised this, perhaps more traditional snack shops like U Mg Mg Than’s would be able to flourish, offering rarities that are in danger of disappearing from the snacking scene forever.