Laphet – a culinary narrative

 Laphet food stall on Suledagon Road, Yangon

Laphet ingredients, food stall on Suledagon Road, Yangon

Laphet salad assembly, food stall on Suledagon Road, Yangon

Voilà! Laphet salad, Yangon

PERHAPS NOWHERE ELSE will you eat this! Imagine something vaguely reminiscent of Pesto Sauce but combined with a medley of crunchy and flavourful textures. This uniquely Burmese dish makes use of pickled, or rather fermented tea, as a foodstuff. It is laced with sesame oil plus other ingredients such as crispy fried garlic, peas and peanuts, toasted sesame, crushed dried shrimp and preserved shredded ginger.

Having read about this strangely different dish, in my Lonely Planet Guide, my interest had been piqued. The LP travel writer had described it as a "slimy-looking mass of leaves that puts some foreigners off, but is actually quite tasty." Now, you could hardly call that encouraging, could you? In the same publication the dish was referred to as  leq-p'eq however they added that it is often spelled Laphet. Often sounded better to me, in a desperate kind of way.

Across from the Sule Pagoda and along the street, of the same name, was a block of buildings that included a mosque and a lot of pedestrian traffic. Lining a sidewalk of broken pavement, with occasional peeks at the neighbourhood drainage, were a row of food stalls. All of sudden, i spotted the legendary Burmese Laphet. I thought to myself, better not to eat here and just wait. But an invisible force was pulling me towards the humble stall. Before i knew it i had agreed on a price, hardly anything, and before my eyes the Laphet took shape in a bowl – or rather it took place between somebody's fingers. At that point i only then noticed how dirty the server's fingernails were. Oh well! All eyes were on me now, as the hulking tourist took his place on a tiny stool and ever so gingerly tasted the legendary Laphet – and guess what? My Laphet salad was indeed tasty. Nothing worse came of the experience then a new dish tasted and you, dear reader, having to stomach this culinary narrative.


Lahpet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How to Mix a Tea Leaf Salad - YouTube