Rakhine rice-noodle dish—served as a dry salad with a side of fish soup, or as noodles in fish broth, ground roasted-chili oil, and sour palm-juice tinge. Hotter and sourer than Bamar mohinga.
Rakhine-state staple from the Bay-of-Bengal coast around Sittwe (Akyab). Distinguished from Bamar mohinga by use of tamarind (and sometimes Garcinia) juice and bird's-eye chili rather than lemongrass.
Sittwe's Royal Sittwe restaurant serves it for 3,000 kyat with a side of fermented-fish ngapi yay — chef Daw Aye Aye uses fresh hilsa from the Kaladan river estuary.
Thin orange-tinted broth, slick rice strands, raw red-chili-oil slick on top burns immediately, palm-vinegar sour kicks 3 seconds later. Eaten with raw red onion and lime wedge.
Chilies are dry-roasted whole over charcoal until cracked-skin black, then ground with garlic and steeped in coconut-fish oil — the roast-burn flavor (not just heat) is the Rakhine signature; the classic chili form is actually a green-chili paste, which gives the dish its nickname ar-pu shar-pu ('hot throat, hot tongue').
Variations
Sittwe version uses hilsa fish; Thandwe coast version south uses snapper and is sweeter from added palm sugar. Diaspora Yangon version cuts chili by half to suit Bamar palates.
On the Palate
Where Rakhine Mont Di sits in the Burmese flavor cloud
Dry-roast the whole chilies over live heat until the skins char and crack black — that roast-burn aroma, not raw heat, is the Rakhine signature, and a chili oil stirred in without roasting tastes flat and merely spicy.
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
4 steps · 10 min active + 25 min waiting
- 125 min
Simmer Rakhine river fish + lemongrass + chili oil in 2 L water 25 min.
Watch outKeep the broth at a gentle simmer, never a hard boil, so it stays clear and the fish holds its shape.
- 22 min
Add palm-juice tinge (or unripe palm fruit) for sourness.
Watch outAdd the sour palm or tamarind and taste as you go — pull it back the moment the tang balances the richness, before it turns sharp.
- 36 min
Boil rice noodles separately; ladle hot broth over.
- 42 min
Garnish with extra chili oil and lime.
