Street and market stalls tend to provide the regional dishes, but with these you must be a little wary of cleanliness. Mainstream Burmese cuisine represents an intriguing blend of Burman, Mon, Indian and Chinese influences. Rice is the core of any Burmese meal, to be eaten with a choice of curry dishes, most commonly fish, chicken, prawns or mutton. Very little beef or pork is eaten by the Burmese. Beef is considered offensive to the Hindus and Buddhists, pork because the nats disapprove.
Burmese curries are the mildest in Asia in terms of chilli powder.
Heat can be added in the form of balachaung, a table condiment made from chillies, tamarind and dried shrimp pounded together, or form the very pungent, very hot ngapi kyaw- shrimp paste fried in peanut oil and chilli, garlic and onions. Curries are generally cooked until the oil separates from all the other ingredients and floats to top. Some restaurants will add oil to maintain the correct top layer, as the oil preserves the underlying food from contamination by insects and airborne bacteria while the curries sit in open, unheated pots for hours at a time. Almost everything is flavored with Ngapi, which is a salty paste concocted form dried and fermented shrimp or fish, and can be very much an acquired taste. A thin sauce of pressed fish or shrimp called nganpya-yay may also be used to salt Burmese dishes.