Burma Superstar

Vegetables

You won’t see the New Roots garden unless you know where to look—behind the bistro at Laney College in downtown Oakland.
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There, gardeners tend beds of Chinese mustard greens, onions, pumpkin, chayote, chiles, garlic, chives, beans, and whatever else happens to be in season. In the summer, there could be fifty different plants growing, with cheery marigolds planted in between the rows. The 3,000-square-foot plot is productive. When one summer brought in a bumper crop of lemon cucumbers, a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program absorbed the extras.

Since 2013, the New Roots garden has been one of the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) initiatives to help refugees gain access to healthy, familiar food in their new environments. For many who grew up farming in rural communities in Asia, having access to a community garden makes them feel more at home. And the community gardens have been popular: the IRC now has New Roots programs in cities from New York to Seattle.

In Oakland, refugees from Myanmar, Bhutan, and Nepal share the garden, each ethnic group maintaining a section. Many live close enough to walk or take the bus to the campus. While some gardeners have specific preferences—the Bhutanese, for example, love nettles—there’s a lot of produce crossover between the groups. Everyone eats Chinese mustard greens, and everyone has their own way of making pickles with them—which often requires drying the leaves in the sun beforehand. (Pickled mustard greens are a classic condiment with Shan Noodles.)

The garden also grows sour leaf—chin baung in Burmese—a favorite bitter green related to the hibiscus plant. It grows all over Myanmar, and Burmese immigrants in America quickly find their source. In refugee communities, those who grow it can make a good profit from selling it to other refugees. While the bulk of the sour leaf grown in the Oakland garden is taken home by the gardeners themselves, at the New Roots garden in Phoenix, sour leaf grows so well that gardeners can’t cut it fast enough.

Many of the recipes in this chapter won’t be found in the Burma Superstar restaurants, but they have been gathered from Burmese relatives and friends and during research trips to Myanmar. Serving one or two at the table with any of the curries, noodle dishes, or stir-fries in this book is the perfect way to make the book work for home-cooked meals. If you’ve never known what to do with chayote or water spinach, these simple sides will spark ideas. Having a pot of butter beans or spicy eggplant to eat alongside any salad, curry, or bowl of noodles goes a long way toward making a meal more complete. And you don’t need a garden to gain access to the vegetables in this chapter. While cauliflower is available just about everywhere, water spinach, chayote, and pea shoots are easily found in Asian grocery stores, and at (often shockingly) good prices.

TOMATO SHRIMP RELISH
WITH RAW VEGETABLES

At traditional restaurants in Myanmar, every meal begins with a complimentary plate of raw vegetables paired with a pungent dipping sauce. It can be a brothy dip or a relish like this one, but it almost always contains shrimp paste and sometimes ground dried shrimp. Every cook has her own version, but the best of these condiments pack in an incredible amount of umami flavor. You can serve this as a dip with any assortment of crudités or go Burmese-style and eat it with tiny raw green eggplants, leafy bitter herbs, and half-moons of bitter melon. Instead of cleaning out the pot after making the relish, stir-fry day-old rice to soak up the flavor left behind. That’s what one of Desmond’s aunts likes to do.

MAKES ABOUT 3 CUPS RELISH; SERVES 10 AS AN APPETIZER

Relish

⅓ cup canola oil

3 cups finely diced yellow onion

¼ cup minced garlic

2 tablespoons shrimp paste (see this page)

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon cayenne

¼ teaspoon turmeric

2 to 3 Thai chiles, thinly sliced crosswise

⅓ cup dried shrimp powder (see this page)

5 cups diced Roma tomatoes (about 10 tomatoes)

1 to 2 tablespoons fish sauce

1 teaspoon salt

Crudités (any combination of the following)

1 to 2 cucumbers, sliced on an angle, for dipping

¼ head cabbage, cut into thin wedges

Handful of cauliflower florets, blanched

1 to 2 carrots, peeled and cut into sticks

½ to 1 bitter melon, seeded and thinly sliced (see this page)

Cilantro sprigs, for garnish

Bitter greens, such as sorrel leaves or watercress

In a 4-quart pot or deep saucepan, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Stir in the onions, decrease the heat to medium-low, and cook, stirring often, until the onions have browned around the edges and softened, 6 to 8 minutes.

Stir in the garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until the garlic is very aromatic and the edges of the onions have started to brown, about 1 minute. Stir in the shrimp paste and cook for 1 minute.

Stir in the paprika, cayenne, turmeric, chiles, and shrimp powder and cook briefly. Stir in the tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Decrease the heat to low and cook, stirring often, until the water from the tomatoes has mostly evaporated and the relish has thickened, 10 to 15 minutes. The tomatoes will have turned from bright red to brick red.

Add 1 tablespoon fish sauce and the salt and cook for 1 minute more. Taste, adding 1 tablespoon or so of fish sauce (or a pinch of salt) for more impact. When the relish cools, a thin film of oil should rise to the surface.

Before serving, give the relish a good stir. Transfer a cup or so to a bowl and serve with a platter of crudités. Garnish the top with cilantro sprigs. The rest of the relish will keep for 2 weeks in the refrigerator, although its color will brown a bit.

HOW TO PREPARE BITTER MELON

Like the other crunchy vegetables that come with the freebie relish plate at Burmese restaurants, bitter melon is a refreshing counterpoint to the rich relish. To prepare it, cut off the ends and slice it in half lengthwise. Scoop out any seeds or membranes and slice each half crosswise into half-moons. You can serve it as is or soak it in some water and a pinch of salt before serving to draw out some of the bitterness.

GRILLED OKRA
WITH TOMATO SHRIMP RELISH

The best place to chill out after a hot day in Yangon is 19th Street, which becomes a small-scale version of a night market. Pick and choose what you want from various vendors cooking skewered fish, meat, and vegetables and then take a seat and order something to drink. Somehow, the vendors find you. Grilling vegetables, like okra, gives them a meaty, savory quality that perfectly complements Tomato Shrimp Relish. It all goes down easy with a chilled Myanmar beer.

SERVES 4 AS A SIDE DISH

14 ounces okra (about 20), stem ends trimmed

1 tablespoon canola oil

Salt

1 cup Tomato Shrimp Relish, at room temperature

1 lime, cut into wedges

Preheat a grill over medium-high heat or have a grill pan ready. Soak wooden skewers if using a regular grill. If using a grill pan, you can skip the skewers.

In a bowl, mix together the okra, oil, and a couple of pinches of salt.

If using a regular grill, thread 4 or 5 okra onto each of 2 wooden skewers, keeping the skewers parallel to each other so the pods look like rungs on a ladder.

Grill the okra until nicely charred in parts, 3 to 4 minutes. Spread the relish across the bottom of a plate. Pull the okra off the skewers, if using, and scatter the okra over the relish. Serve with a bowl of lime wedges.

SOUR LEAF
WITH BAMBOO AND SHRIMP

Seemingly everyone who grew up in Myanmar loves chin baung, sour leaf, which grows all over the country. And everyone especially loves it with bamboo and shrimp, chin baung kyaw. This version of the recipe comes from Rahima, who is married to Har San, Burma Superstar’s resident platha (flatbread) expert. The couple met in Chiang Mai, Thailand, but Rahima learned how to cook where she grew up—in a refugee camp on the border of Thailand and Burma. And even though her kids were born in America, Rahima says they prefer Burmese home cooking to American food. Bamboo is a classic match with sour leaf, the green’s sourness offsetting bamboo’s earthy flavors. Fresh bamboo shoots are not easy to find, but bamboo shoots vacuum-sealed in clear plastic packaging are available at many Asian markets. Look for them in the refrigerated sections. Preferable to canned, these bamboo shoots have already been peeled and poached, so all they need is a rinse before cooking.

SERVES 4 TO 6 AS A SIDE DISH

2 cups coarsely chopped bamboo shoots

¼ cup canola oil

3 cups sliced yellow onion

2 tablespoons minced garlic

½ teaspoon turmeric

1 to 4 Thai chiles, halved lengthwise

2 teaspoons paprika

2 teaspoons salt

8 cups loosely packed fresh, stemmed sour leaf (about 2 bunches); or 2 cups frozen and thawed sour leaf; or 8 cups sorrel leaves

1 pound large shrimp (16–20 or 20–25 per pound), peeled and deveined

1 tablespoon fish sauce (optional)

Rinse the bamboo shoots and drain well.

In a 6-quart pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, and chiles and cook for 4 minutes. Add the turmeric and paprika and cook for 1 minute more. Stir in the bamboo and the salt. Cook, stirring often, until the onions have softened, about 2 more minutes.

Add the sour leaf a couple handfuls at a time and cook, stirring to encourage the leaves to wilt, for 4 minutes more. Stir in the shrimp and cook until the shrimp is cooked through, about 2 minutes. The sour leaf will turn brown; that’s okay. Taste, seasoning with fish sauce if desired.

WHAT IS SOUR LEAF?

Sour leaf was nearly impossible to find in San Francisco a couple of decades ago. So when someone in the local Burmese community spotted the leafy green at a farmers’ market, it was big news. But back in 2002, the supply was tight: Laotian farmers who grew it had only a limited amount because demand wasn’t there. This changed quickly, especially as refugees from Myanmar began arriving in the Bay Area. By the mid-2000s, Burmese immigrants would buy whatever the farmers had—even placing orders in advance to secure supply for the following week.

Bite into sour leaf raw, and it tastes as described: sour. But start cooking with it and the initial bite turns to an easygoing sourness that actually improves when the leaf is cooked by the handful. Used to perk up soups and balance the flavors of bamboo and shrimp, sour leaf is a prized green in Myanmar. Related to hibiscus, sour leaf usually has a pointy three-prong leaf, but can also have a rounded leaf. Both are used in Myanmar, with the three-pronged leaf described as sour and the rounded leaf as bitter. When tasted alongside similarly strong-tasting french sorrel, sour leaf offers a more mellow, rounded flavor.

Nowadays, sour leaf supply is more dependable, but you still need to secure a source. More farmers specializing in Asian ingredients are aware of the value placed on sour leaf among Burmese, not only in California but also in Tennessee, North Carolina, Washington, Indiana, and other areas with growing Burmese communities. You still have to act fast. As soon as sour leaf appears before a farmers’ market, word spreads in the Burmese community. While summer is the season for sour leaf in California, some years it’s available as early as April. During the off-season, look for it in the frozen section of Asian groceries in areas with Burmese communities. (Kate found some in the back of a small grocery store specializing in Burmese ingredients in Greensboro, North Carolina.) Or make a Burmese friend and ask for a hookup.

CORN WITH CHARRED ONIONS

The drive from Hsipaw to Namhsan in the Shan State is filled with cornfields. There are mixed opinions as to where all of this field corn is going—some say China; others say a Thai conglomerate. While none of this commodity product reaches Burmese tables, sweet corn is definitely eaten in Myanmar. What hits the table isn’t as sweet as what we get in the States, and it varies in color too. Its preparations are kept simple. Some vendors sell corn on the cob steamed or roasted, while at home, many moms make this mild dish for their kids, the main flavor coming from sliced onions fried long enough to char a bit on the edges.

SERVES 2 TO 4 AS A SIDE DISH

4 ears yellow corn

2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon canola oil

1 cup sliced yellow onion or shallot

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon dried chile flakes

Shuck the corn and wipe off the corn silk. Stand the cob upright on a cutting board. Angling the knife downward and slightly inward, cut the kernels off the cob. You should have about 4 cups.

In a wok or pot with a lid, heat the 2 tablespoons of oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook, lowering the heat to medium and stirring often, until the onions are golden brown and charred around the edges, 8 to 10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the onions to a plate.

Add the remaining 1 teaspoon oil to the wok and heat over medium-high heat. Add the corn and cook, stirring occasionally, until the kernels begin to char and pop like popcorn (if they start going crazy, use the lid to partially cover the wok). Stir-fry until the corn is cooked but not mushy, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and chile flakes and stir in the onions to serve.

CHAYOTE WITH DRIED SHRIMP

Chayote (chai-OH-tee) is a light green fruit about the size of a quince or pear, with a dense texture and mild flavor. While technically a fruit, it’s cooked like a vegetable. (Its greens are used in stir-fries too.) This simple Chinese-style side dish was one of Desmond’s favorites growing up. To prepare chayote, peel away the tough green skin before slicing. If you have trouble finding chayote, use 4 cups sliced green cabbage in its place. Look for chayote in Asian and Latin American grocery stores.

SERVES 2 TO 4 AS A SIDE DISH

2 chayotes (about 1 pound)

¼ cup dried shrimp (see this page)

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 tablespoon minced garlic

¾ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon peanut oil or sesame oil (optional)

¼ teaspoon ground white or black pepper

Peel the chayotes and quarter lengthwise. Slice crosswise into thin ¼-inch-thick slabs.

Put the shrimp in a bowl and cover with hot water. Soak for 10 minutes. Drain and squeeze the excess water out of the shrimp.

In a large, heavy pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook briefly, about 10 seconds. Stir in the chayote, shrimp, and salt. Continue to cook, stirring, for 2 minutes, until the chayote barely begins to brown on the edges. Add a splash of water and cook until softened, about 2 minutes more.

Stir in the peanut oil and pepper. Taste, adding more salt or pepper if desired.

WOK-TOSSED BROCCOLI

At the Burma Superstar wok station, broccoli is briefly blanched, drip-dried, and then stir-fried quickly in a powerful wok to get that addictive bit of char on the florets. This version has been modified slightly assuming your home does not have access to the same number of BTUs. To make the most of a head of broccoli, use the stalks too. Peel away the tough skin and slice the stalks into coins. Or go with broccoli’s skinny cousin, broccolini, which cooks much faster. Slice the broccolini stems into pieces about 2 inches long and keep the small florets intact.

SERVES 4 AS A SIDE DISH

2 tablespoons canola oil

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

8 ounces small broccoli florets and stalks (about 4 cups)

1 small dried chile, broken in half, or a pinch of dried chile flakes

1 tablespoon rice wine (optional)

½ teaspoon salt

In a large wok or pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Swirl the oil in the wok and add the garlic. Stir-fry until lightly golden and fragrant, about 20 seconds. Turn off the heat, use a slotted spoon to remove the garlic from the wok, and set the garlic aside. Leave the oil in the wok.

Heat the wok over high heat and add the broccoli and chile. Stir-fry until some of the florets have a little char on them, about 1 minute. Add the wine, salt, and a spoonful of water and continue to cook until the broccoli has softened but is still crisp, about 2 minutes more. Return the garlic to the wok and toss to coat.

WOK-TOSSED PEA SHOOTS

Chinese-style stir-fried pea shoots are a refreshing side dish for any meal of slow-cooked curry and rich noodles. Before you start stir-frying, cut the pea shoots into 2- to 3-inch pieces. (Bags of pre-cut pea shoots are often available at Asian markets.) To help them steam a bit in the wok, leave a little water clinging to the leaves after washing them.

SERVES 2 TO 4 AS A SIDE DISH

2 tablespoons canola oil

3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

8 ounces pea shoots (about 8 packed cups)

1 small dried chile, broken in half, or a pinch of dried chile flakes

1 tablespoon rice wine (optional)

½ teaspoon salt

Heat the wok over high heat and add the pea shoots, chile, and wine. Stir-fry, stirring constantly, until the leaves have wilted but the stems are still crisp, about 1 minute. Return the garlic to the wok and toss to coat. Season with salt.

WATER SPINACH

Grown all over Southeast Asia, water spinach has a million names. It can be called morning glory, Hong Kong spinach, or ong choy. During the monsoon season in Myanmar, water spinach is a regular part of the vegetable rotation. It’s widely popular for a reason: its tender spinach-like leaves and hollow stems readily soak up flavor.

There are two kinds of water spinach. One has long, skinny leaves while the other has wider, heart-shaped leaves (pictured). Both have the plant’s signature hollow stems and can be prepared the same way. Look for the vegetable in bags at Chinese grocery stores. While the stems of the water spinach pictured here is on the short side, water spinach can grow quite long. If the stems are long, you may have more stems than greens, but that’s perfectly fine. For a vegetarian version, omit the shrimp paste and 1 tablespoon of soy sauce.

SERVES 2 TO 4 AS A SIDE DISH

12 ounces water spinach, about 10 cups

1 tablespoon canola oil

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

½ Thai chile, thinly sliced crosswise, or 1 tablespoon minced jalapeño

2 teaspoons shrimp paste (see this page)

Pinch of salt

Line a baking sheet with a kitchen towel and fill a large bowl with water.

Twist off the base of the water spinach bunches. Using your hands or scissors, separate the thicker stems from the tender tops. (The ends take longer to cook, so you’ll add those to the wok first.) Using scissors or a knife, trim the hollow stems into pieces about 3 inches long. The leafy tops can be longer.

Submerge the leaves in the bowl of water and give them a good wash, then spread them out on one side of the kitchen towel to drain. Repeat with the stems, spreading them on the other side of the towel.

In a wok or large pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Swirl the oil in the wok and add the garlic, chile, and shrimp paste. Stir-fry until the garlic begins to brown, about 15 seconds. Add the spinach stems, decrease the heat to medium-low, and cook until the stems start to soften, about 1 minute. (Don’t worry if the stems are still wet; the water clinging to the stems will keep the garlic from burning.)

Stir in the leaves, partially cover the wok, and cook until the spinach leaves have wilted, 1 to 2 minutes. If the wok is dry and the leaves start to stick, add a spoonful of water. Taste, seasoning with salt if desired, and stir-fry for 1 minute more or until the leaves are tender but the stems are still a bit crunchy.

CAULIFLOWER AND TOMATO

Cauliflower is grown in the Shan hills, where it’s packed into trucks or onto trains destined for Mandalay and Yangon. We came across this simple dish of sautéed cauliflower and tomato while visiting the temple town of Bagan. There, a beaten egg was poured over the top and stirred in at the end to give it richness, but the vegetables stand alone just fine without the egg. When re-creating it in California, we found that tamarind salt made a nice addition to the vegetables. For a spicier, even saltier take, drizzle soy sauce over the veggies and finish with a heaping spoonful of sambal oelek (see this page).

SERVES 3 TO 4 AS A SIDE DISH

1 pound cauliflower florets (about 4 heaping cups)

¼ cup canola oil

½ teaspoon salt

2 large shallots or ¼ red onion, sliced

2 Roma tomatoes, sliced thinly lengthwise

1 teaspoon Tamarind Salt (optional)

1 cup cilantro sprigs, coarsely chopped

1 lime or lemon, cut into wedges

Give the cauliflower a once-over, slicing any of the larger florets in half or in quarters to ensure even cooking.

In a wok or pot with a lid, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the cauliflower and the salt. Cover, decrease the heat to low, and cook 4 minutes or until the cauliflower starts to brown and soften.

Uncover and add the shallots. Continue to cook stirring often, until the shallots begin to soften, 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, increase the heat to medium-high, and cook until the tomatoes begin to break down, the cauliflower is cooked through, and most of the water has evaporated, about 1 minute more.

Taste, seasoning with tamarind salt or regular salt as needed. Sprinkle cilantro over the top. Serve with a bowl of lime wedges at the table.

BAGAN BUTTER BEANS

When traveling through central Myanmar during the dry season, a side of pale yellow beans is a staple. A couple of days ahead, cooks soak, strain, and then cover the beans to encourage them to sprout, making them easier to digest. This recipe modifies the process a bit, using easy-to-find dried lima beans and skipping the sprouting step. The rest of the dish is just as no-fuss, but if you want to dress it up, sprinkle some Fried Onions on top when serving. Serve the beans alongside Pork Curry with Green Mango Pickle, Pumpkin Pork Stew, or any of the kebats (starting on this page).

MAKES ABOUT 3 CUPS; SERVES 4 AS A SIDE DISH

2 cups dried lima beans

2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons canola oil

2 cups diced yellow onion or shallot

Heaping ¼ teaspoon turmeric

Rinse the beans well in a colander, picking out any pebbles. Put the beans in a bowl and cover with 2 inches of cool water. Let soak for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Drain the beans and transfer to a 4-quart pot. Add water to cover by 2 inches. Place over high heat and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally to prevent any foam from boiling over. Lower the heat to a gentle simmer and cook uncovered until tender, about 1 hour. Remove the beans from the heat, stir in the salt, and let the beans stand in their cooking water for at least 30 minutes. This will allow them to absorb the salt. At this point, you can refrigerate the beans and finish the recipe the next day.

Drain the beans, reserving the bean cooking water. Give the pot a quick rinse, dry it, and then heat it over medium-high heat. Pour in the oil and add the onions. Lower the heat to medium and cook until the onions have softened and are starting to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the turmeric and cook for 1 minute more. Stir in the beans and about 1 cup of the reserved bean cooking water and simmer gently until the beans have thickened, about 5 minutes more. The beans may fall apart as they cook, but this is perfectly okay. Taste, seasoning with more salt if desired.

PA-O BEANS

While we were researching Burmese food for this book, cookbook author Andrea Nguyen put Kate in touch with journalist Karen Coates. Karen, along with her husband, photojournalist Jerry Redfern, have extensive experience reporting (and eating) throughout Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar. One of the Burmese dishes Karen recounted was something she sampled while trekking across the Shan State in 2002 with Jerry. It was a humble pot of beans made by a Pa-O family, one of Myanmar’s many minority groups. But it was the way the beans were infused with garlic, ginger, and peanut oil that made them memorable enough for Karen to recreate the dish at home in New Mexico. To create a similar version of Karen’s Pa-O beans, modify the Bagan Butter Beans by adding five smashed garlic cloves and a tablespoon or so of minced ginger to the pot once the onion starts to soften. Before serving, drizzle an aromatic peanut oil over the beans and sprinkle sliced green onions on top.

SPICY EGGPLANT

Serve this curry-style eggplant as a side dish or, paired with the Ginger Salad, as a main course. In Myanmar, tiny green eggplants are liked so much that they’re even served raw (but make no mistake: they are still truly bitter). For this version, opt for slender Japanese or Chinese eggplants. To make it vegetarian, leave out the shrimp paste and fish sauce and season with Tamarind Salt. This curry packs some heat. To tone down the spice level, opt for jalapeño over Thai chile.

SERVES 3 TO 4 AS A SIDE DISH

3 Japanese eggplants, cut into 1-inch cubes (about 6 cups)

1 teaspoon salt

2½ tablespoons canola oil

2 cups finely diced yellow onion

3 tablespoons minced garlic

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1 to 2 Thai chiles, thinly sliced,or 2 tablespoons minced jalapeño

1 small dried chile, broken in half, seeds retained (optional)

2 teaspoons shrimp paste (see this page)

½ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon fish sauce

Handful of Fried Garlic Chips (optional)

Cilantro sprigs, for garnish

1 lime or lemon, cut into wedges, for garnish

Season the eggplant with salt and scatter onto a clean dish towel. Let it sit while you prepare the remaining ingredients, at least 10 minutes. Once the eggplant begins to bead with water, wrap the towel tightly and squeeze to remove excess liquid from the eggplant.

In a wok or pot, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium-high heat. Add the eggplant, lower the heat to medium, and cook, stirring often, until the eggplant begins to soften, about 4 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, scoop out the eggplant and transfer to a plate.

Heat the remaining 1½ tablespoons of oil in the wok. Add the onions and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often to prevent scorching, until softened, about 4 minutes. Stir in the garlic, ginger, fresh and dried chiles, and shrimp paste and cook until the onions are completely soft and starting to turn golden, 3 more minutes.

Add the turmeric and paprika and then stir in the eggplant and about ½ cup of water. Lower to a gentle simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the eggplant is very soft and most of the water has evaporated, about 5 minutes. Season with fish sauce, adding more for a saltier flavor, and squeeze a wedge or two of lime over the top.

Serve in a bowl and top with cilantro. Offer extra lime wedges alongside.

A BID FOR DEMOCRACY

From 1962—when a military junta took control from a struggling civilian government—until the reforms that began in 2011 and 2012, Myanmar was a country cut off from the rest of the world. For half a century, the government controlled businesses, censored the press, and limited contact with the outside world.

On Sunday, November 8, 2015, Myanmar turned a corner. Facebook posts began filling with photos documenting the lines forming outside polling stations to vote in the country’s general election. The streets were quiet. A trip from uptown to downtown that would usually take an hour in traffic lasted only fifteen minutes. Many citizens were casting votes for the first time in a free and fair election, an act that would have seemed impossible a decade earlier. By Monday afternoon, crowds were cheering, holding NLD (National League for Democracy) banners, and celebrating their party’s victory.

“The days after the election were surreal,” said Sarah Oh, an American living in Yangon who had been working with voter groups on ways to use technology to help spread election information. “No one was sure what would happen next. Now, looking back, it was clear that there was a new confidence and feeling in the air. People felt like individuals could finally make a difference or have a say.”

The party in power, the Union Solidarity and Development Party led by President Thein Sein, a former general, lost by a landslide to the NLD. The NLD was a party headed by Nobel laureate and former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, a woman who had spent fifteen years under house arrest. In 1990, the last time her party won an election, the government had ignored the results.

Change had already begun a few years before the historic election; Myanmar had started to become a different place. Beginning in 2011, the military started to loosen up, putting a nominally civilian government in power. President Sein became the first Burmese president to visit the United States in forty-eight years. He also started releasing political prisoners and ended media censorship. Meanwhile, the United States and other countries began lifting some trade sanctions, and private companies—and money—began flowing into Yangon. By 2015, the price of office space in Yangon rivaled that of New York and Singapore. The cost of cars, while still prohibitively high for most Burmese, also began to drop, and traffic began to resemble the gridlock in cities like Bangkok.

The cost of staying connected within the country also decreased—significantly. Buying a SIM card for a mobile phone dropped from $2,000 in 2009 to about $1.50 in 2014, reported journalists Karen Coates and Jerry Redfern on SciDev.net. A country that never had reliable phone service was now inundated with mobile phones. And seemingly everyone with access to the Internet joined Facebook.

At Sharky’s, a restaurant in an affluent neighborhood of Yangon, tables are always packed with foreigners craving European food: caprese salad made with buffalo milk mozzarella, steak, and wood-fired pizza. U Ye Htut Hin—who calls himself Sharky—got his start in the restaurant business at a Wendy’s in Switzerland. He grows or makes more than eighty percent of what he serves, including microgreens, artisan breads and cheeses, and sea salt harvested from Myanmar’s coast. Most of the time, growing and making these things himself is the only way to guarantee the supply of these luxuries. Since foreign business started taking an interest in the city, the demand for Sharky’s restaurant and retail products had become so strong that a few months before the election, Sharky and his business partner, Jane Brooks, opened a second space downtown. Jane told us that no matter what happens politically, it’s unlikely that the momentum of foreign-business growth in Yangon will stop. The hope is that these business interests will also keep the government moving in a progressive direction.

The results of the election haven’t been perfect. Although her party won, Daw Suu (“Aunt Suu,” the polite Burmese way to refer to Aung San Suu Kyi) cannot become president because the constitution forbids anyone who has foreign relatives from holding office. (Her two sons are half British.) So Htin Kyaw, a prodemocracy advocate and son of a renowned poet, became president on Daw Suu’s behalf. He is the first civilian president in fifty-four years. Meanwhile, conflict between the military and ethnic rebel groups in the Shan, Kachin, and Chin states continues. At the writing of this book, Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State were living in legal limbo, not accepted by the Burmese as citizens.

There are also plenty of remnants from the previous regime. In 2005, the government moved the capital from Yangon to a place they eventually named Nay Pyi Taw, a new city built amid fields of commodity crops between Yangon and Mandalay—the cultural equivalent of the middle of nowhere. More than a decade later, its empty boulevards are baffling sites compared to the packed streets of Yangon and Mandalay. While Nay Pyi Taw has new roads, the rest of the country’s infrastructure has been neglected, from unpaved roads to bumpy train lines built during the British colonial days. Many rural areas don’t have electricity. Even in Yangon, public utilities can’t be relied upon. To keep business humming, Sharky’s has full-time electricians on staff and maintains its own water filtration system.

By the time this book is printed, it will still be too early to determine what the lasting effects of the November 2015 election will be. Yet compared to 1990, when the election results quickly became meaningless, this has been an enormous step forward. For the first time in decades, the people of Myanmar—whether they live here or there—have reason to believe that their country is heading toward a better future.