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Sunset Garden Restaurant, Bagan, Myanmar, Burma

Charles Pelham's dining tour takes him to Burma

On the banks of the Irrawaddy River, now called the Ayeyarwady, you will come across a very special restaurant run by the very friendly Min Min Aung. Everything about it is delightful and calm. It's built entirely of Burmese Teak, the substance that the English were so anxious to obtain when we colonialised this verdant land by annexing it as a province of British India in 1886, after the two Anglo-Burmese Wars in 1826 and 1852 respectively.

Burmese Temple We were ready for lunch as we had already enjoyed an intense morning of quite extraordinary sightseeing, visiting some of the 2,000 magnificent temples on the plains of Bagan in Northern Myanmar. If you go only to one place in this country, Bagan is the spot.

The Sunset Garden Restaurant is also spotless with top class rest rooms, such a joy when you are up country! One other small detail: it really does look right over this extraordinary river, where it is quite wide and where you can see fishing craft meander by under the baking noonday sun. As the sun was over the yard arm, Mandalay Beer beckoned strongly. We were happy to say hello as it really was very hot!

As we sat there entranced by the view, any food would have been good, but what came would have been delicious anywhere. We ate the following:

  • Tea Leaf Pickle, comprising Sesame, Peas, Beans, Garlic and pickled Tea.
  • Lentil and Vermicelli Soup.
  • Bean Salad.
  • Watercress fried with Garlic.
  • Fish Paste with onion fried in hot oil.
  • Stewed Pumpkin.
  • Pork Curry.
  • Chicken Curry.

    The Bean Salad was the best, as indeed were all the salads we had in this beautiful country. It was something about the crunchiness of the fried onion within these salads that was so good.

    It was with a somewhat heavy heart that we said farewell to this really excellent restaurant. It is situated right on the Silk Road, which was set up here in the latter part of the Tenth Century. This we found particularly interesting as we had dined at the beginning of the Silk Road in Xi'an, China, a few weeks before. (Please see Xi'an Restaurant Review))

    Charles Pelham, Hong Kong, December, 1999.

    Sunset Garden Restaurant, Bagan, Myanmar
    Tel: 062 70098

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