Yangon eats in layers: Burmese curry houses that refill your soup for free, Shan noodle shops, Indian biryani counters and Chinatown grill lanes. Breakfast is mohinga, mid-afternoon is milk tea on a plastic stool, and dinner is skewers under strip lights.
Yangon's largest indoor market sprawls over four blocks between Shwedagon Pagoda Road and 24th Street. Block C is the dried-goods maze: ngapi shrimp paste, fermented tea leaf, dried fish, tamarind pulp. Trading starts 06:00 and thins by 17:00.
A 1970s curry house on 1st Street, Lanmadaw where you point at aluminium trays of pork belly in thick oil, catfish curry and mutton. Every order brings free rice, clear soup, raw vegetables and balachaung relish, all refilled without asking.
Neighbourhood branch of Yangon's teashop chain: low plastic stools, laphet yay cha poured strong and sweet, and trays of e kya kway fritters, samosas and steamed buns carried past your table. You pay only for what you take.
The pavements around Baho Road and Pyay Road in Sanchaung fill after dark with charcoal skewer grills, mont lin ma yar rice-flour puffs cooked in dimpled pans, deep-fried gourd and warm shan tofu nway. Busiest between 18:00 and 22:00.
Mohinga specialist off Bo Yar Nyunt Street serving the catfish and banana-stem noodle soup Burmese eat for breakfast, thickened with toasted chickpea flour. Top it with split-pea fritters, boiled egg, coriander and a hard squeeze of lime.
A narrow two-floor shophouse on 34th Street doing Shan khauk swe: rice noodles with marinated chicken or pork, crushed peanuts and pickled mustard greens, served wet in broth or dry-tossed. Shan tofu and tofu nway round out the short menu.
A restored colonial shophouse on Pansodan Street reworking street food for sit-down eating: several mohinga variants, tea-leaf salad with fried garlic and split peas, slow-cooked pork belly, and a tea list graded by strength and sweetness.
Teak-panelled dining room on Wardan Street cooking Shan State food: hin htoke steamed leaf parcels, pounded tomato salad, fermented soybean discs, Inle-style fish and roasted duck. The English menu explains each dish and its region.
Kyeemyindaing's riverside wholesale market, where hilsa, rohu, prawns and mud crab landed overnight are hosed across concrete floors and auctioned by the basket. Small stalls along the edge will fry or grill your purchase on the spot.
Anawrahta Road institution serving Burmese-Muslim danbauk: chicken steamed over ghee rice with mint chutney, pickled mango and a bowl of clear soup. The falooda — rose syrup, jelly, basil seed and ice cream — is the other reason people queue.
Canteen-style restaurant off Pyidaungsu Yeiktha Road where staff walk you along steam trays holding thirty-plus curries, salads and soups. The clearest single place to taste laphet thoke, nan gyi thoke and mont di in one sitting.
Latha Township's grill lane: pick raw skewers of okra, quail egg, pork intestine, tofu and prawn from iced trays, hand them to the charcoal cook, then eat at plastic tables with cold Myanmar Beer. Stalls light up around 17:00 and run past midnight.