How Indian Food Found A Home In Burma And Came Back With A Story

It is this shared culinary history that Burma Burma explores with its limited-edition menu, ‘Across Borders: Journeys From India to Burma’, running from November 1 to December 15, 2026, across all its restaurants. The menu brings together dishes that tell stories of migration, adaptation and the exchange of food traditions between the two regions.

“For centuries, traders, sailors, workers and business communities journeyed along Burmese trade routes from Indian port cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Surat to Yangon, and they carried their kitchens with them,” says Ankit Gupta, Co-founder and Joint Managing Director of Burma Burma.

The journeys of some familiar dishes make for interesting stories. Samosas, for instance, travelled with workers from Bihar and found a new identity in Burma as Samoza Kari. A noodle dish carried home by traders from Surat became Khao Sa, while Indian sailors who settled in Yangon cooked with locally available ingredients, giving rise to Sailor’s Curry Palata.

“Those recipes didn’t stay in one place either; they travelled with the different communities and became part of both food cultures. These stories sit quietly behind dishes many of us think we know, and we wanted to bring them to the table,” Gupta says. “With Across Borders, we want guests to experience the journey as well as the dish, and to discover how much the two cuisines share in common.”

The menu draws on historical journeys and traditional recipes, with the culinary team giving them a contemporary interpretation. Gupta says the stories behind the dishes remain the starting point, while the creative process lies in how they are presented today.

“The Mont Let Saung is linked to Chettinad traders and is still enjoyed in Chennai. The Burma Roti is inspired by Mumbai’s Baida Roti, and the Sailor’s Curry Palata by Indian sailors who settled in Yangon and cooked with local ingredients,” he says.

The contemporary touches are particularly evident in some of the drinks and desserts. The Sattu Caramel Cooler takes sattu, an ingredient associated with Bihar, and turns it into a chilled sharbat with coconut, condensed milk and black grass jelly. The Jaggery & Rice Pudding brings together Indian cooking techniques with Burmese palm jaggery and short-grain rice, served with caramelised apples and toasted coconut chips.

“We look at the history, research traditional recipes and then give them a contemporary flair while staying true to their roots,” Gupta explains.

But what happens to a dish when it moves from one place to another? Does it retain its original identity or become something entirely different? For Gupta, the answer lies in understanding how food evolves as it becomes part of another community's everyday life.

“Across Borders explores exactly this. While some dishes keep their roots, others take on the ingredients and flavours of the place where they settle,” he says.

The Gone Yi Street Salad is one such example. Workers from Bihar carried a street-market favourite to Yangon, where chanaa and fried potatoes were tossed with Kalar, a fragrant Burmese spice blend. The dish retained its original character but also became part of Yangon’s street food culture.

“The Shwe Pu Zun Faluda works the same. Faluda is a dessert many Indians grew up with, and Yangon’s faluda shops made it their own with a signature baked custard on top,” Gupta says.

Even the Spiced Guava Salad, a street food favourite in both Kolkata and Yangon, reflects how the same dish can take on different interpretations depending on where it is prepared.

“None of these is less authentic for having changed. I see each change as the next chapter of the story of each dish,” he says.

Among all the dishes on the menu, however, Khao Sa holds a particularly interesting place in this shared history. The dish has its roots in Burmese Khow Suey, which travelled to Surat with families who had migrated back from Yangon or had relatives living there. Over time, local households began preparing their own versions, adapting the dish to their tastes.

“In Surat, many families who migrated back or had relatives staying in Yangon make their version of the famous Burmese Khow Suey with their own twist. People locally started calling it Khow Sa and, slowly, with the rising popularity, it went to the masses and became a popular street food there,” Gupta says.

Today, Khao Sa is an iconic Surti dish, enjoyed across Gujarat. Its journey from Burma to Surat is an example of how a dish can become firmly rooted in a new place without completely losing its connection to where it came from.

“It’s fascinating how the dish left home, became something entirely new, but still gives a nod to its origins with the coconut curry and crisp toppings,” he adds.

Recreating dishes that have evolved over generations also comes with the responsibility of understanding what makes them distinctive. Gupta says the restaurant does not approach the exercise as an attempt to reproduce recipes exactly as they were made in the past. Instead, the focus is on understanding the ingredients, techniques and traditions that have been passed down.

“Authenticity lives in how a dish is made and not in a strict recipe. We don’t recreate the recipes; we look at the ingredients and techniques used to make them and keep those culinary traditions alive,” he says.

The research also involves learning from families who have continued to prepare these dishes over generations. The culinary team, led by Chef Ansab Khan, Chief of Kitchen Operations, has been engaging with families during research trips across Burma to understand the stories and methods behind the food.

“Our culinary teams also learn from the families who have preserved these recipes over generations during their research trips across Burma, because the real knowledge is in their stories,” Gupta says.

For Khao Sa, the coconut broth, noodles and build-your-own toppings are central to the experience and therefore remain intact. Similarly, the Mont Let Saung requires particular attention to its delicate rice flour pearls, which are served with a cooling blend of coconut water sweetened with palm jaggery.

“The most unique components are the delicate rice flour pearls, so we had to make sure we got those right along with the cooling blend of coconut water, sweetened just right with palm jaggery,” he says.

For Gupta, the larger idea behind Across Borders is also about the role a restaurant can play in bringing lesser-known cultural histories to a wider audience. Food, he believes, offers an accessible way of understanding how communities have interacted over time.

“I think it can. Food is one of the most approachable ways into history, because people don’t have to read about a culture; they can taste it,” he says.

A dish that might otherwise be familiar takes on a different meaning when its journey is explained. The Samoza Kari, for instance, becomes more than a variation of a samosa, while the Jaggery & Rice Pudding carries the story of ingredients and cooking traditions coming together across regions.

“When a guest eats the Samoza Kari or takes a bite into the Jaggery & Rice Pudding, a dish they thought they knew becomes a story about people,” Gupta says.

He believes diners today are increasingly interested in knowing more about what is on their plates, beyond the ingredients and flavours. “I think dining is moving in that direction, with guests wanting meaning as well as flavour.”

And perhaps that is what makes these journeys worth revisiting. Recipes may change as people move, settle and make new homes, but the memories and traditions they carry rarely disappear entirely. “We hope that by the end of the meal, our guests have tasted something new and also learned how food travels and connects us,” Gupta says.