We spent a few days in Inle Lake in the small and picturesque village of Khaung Daing. According to my guidebook, this village is famous for a unique type of yellow tofu, made with fermented yellow peas.
One day I went out for a walk and I came across a signpost pointing to "Tofu Palace". I followed the sign and found something that looked more like a hut than a palace. A friendly man offered to be my guide and promised to help me discover at least 10 new foods I'd never heard about. This sounded very promising, so I decided to follow him for a private tour through the open-air homes of friendly villagers cooking local delicacies.
We started with a presentation on the famous yellow tofu. After the fermentation of the yellow pea paste, the tofu is cooked in an oven in big baking pans.
Afterwards, it can be used in a variety of ways. This is the typical fried tofu that can be added to salads or noodle dishes.
Baked tofu can also be sliced and dried in the sun to prepare tofu crackers.
Once dried, the tofu is fried in a large pan.
The final result looked too tempting so I decided not to think too much about the risks for foreign tourists of eating street food in Myanmar. And I'm so glad I did so, the warm yellow tofu crackers freshly prepared were amazing (and had no unforeseen side effects)!
The degustation continued with fried rice cakes...
... and ended with desserts made from rice flour.
I was so happy I came across Tofu Palace and discovered the delicious food of Khaung Daing. Let's hope someone will start exporting these products outside of Myanmar!
