Through one of Hannah’s friends from work we were very fortunate to be invited to a Burmese Food Fair this weekend. The fair was held at the Dhammatalaka Peace Pagoda, apparently the largest Burmese temple in Europe. There we sampled some of the diverse cuisine which is representative of Burma, incorporating influences from bordering India, China and Thailand. Dishes we sampled included a lovely, thick restorative vermicelli chicken soup which had dried fungus, strips of tofu and lily flowers in. Just the thing to build strength up when getting over a fluey cold. A very sweet dessert had tapioca balls, a dark sugary sauce made from muscovado sugar topped with grated coconut. But the highlight dish was mohinga, comprising a fish broth made from fish paste and catfish with a deep sweet-sour flavour (familiar from Thai food) with vermicelli noodles, a hard-boiled egg, deep fried marrow fritters and something I couldn’t identify at the time but which might have been banana stem. This was topped with more fish sauce, lemon juice, coriander and chilli. Just the thing to clear the sinuses. We took away an excellent, spicy chicken biryani cooked with whole chicken pieces in to have for our tea. Thank you very much to the Kyi family for inviting us to this special event!