Orientalised East London

10 years back, we needed to go to Greenwich or central London if we wanted oriental foods. I remember there was also a Thai grocery shop in Earls Court which is far away from East London. Around 2005, I found out another shop in Walthomstow market street. I think it was a Thai shop, but most oriental foods were available from a variety of vermicelli, glutinous flour to bamboo shoot, dumpling and Vietnamese chilli sauce. Next, I came across a small Thai shop in Stratford shopping mall, but it closed after sometime.

During the last a couple of years, at nearby Tesco Extra in Gallion Reach, Chinese and Thai foods have been on the separate shelves. I saw some ready-made noodles and sauces. In the vegetable and salad row, more kinds of bird eyes chillies (hot+, ++,+++,++++) are waiting for their customers . One great improvement is I can get ung choi. (ကန္ဇြန္းရြက္)

As you know London is a cosmopolitan city and several kinds of foods are available, such as Mediterranean, Latin, Arabic, Indian, Bangladeshi and so on. Well, Chinese take-away shops are every where. But when we need Burmese style foods, we have to depend on Chinese and Indian shops. It is not bad, I think. In Upton park, even baby mango appears in its season. We can also get catfish (ငါးခူ), labelled with produce of Myanmar, and banana tree (they called it like that), at Bangladeshi shop. These are important ingredients when we make traditional fish soup while some people use handy canned fish.

Lamb curry, Ung Choi and mushroom and vegetable variety