Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, is still considered to be the most important commercial centre though Naypyidaw replaced it as the capital in 2006. With the country opening up, following the easing of economic sanctions by Western nations, everybody is making a beeline for this ASEAN-member country.
So, when you next visit this city, drop in at The Strand Hotel to savour a piece of history of years gone by. The Strand Hotel, a heritage hotel built in 1901, is one place you can go for a meal. Whether it is for afternoon tea in its Lobby Lounge, or a meal in the Strand Grill or The Café, this Victorian-style hotel built by the Sarkies Brothers still maintains the charm of leisurely dining of the colonial era.
Like Singapore’s Raffles Hotel, which incidentally was also built by the Armenian brothers, it was then described as one of the most luxurious hotels in the British Empire.
This boutique hotel, comprising 31 suites, reeks of history. As you walk on the marble floor lobby, you feel like you are following the footsteps of past guests such as Rudyard Kipling, Somerset Maugham and more recently, the present President of Singapore, Dr Tony Tan.
Immediately after the entrance on the left was The Café where we decided to have our dinner one evening. A member of our party opted for the set dinner, which was priced at US$45/-, while the rest of us ordered various dishes from the a la carte menu.
The hand-picked jumbo river crab cake (US$13/-) came with tropical fruit and Yangon honey mustard dressing. The crab cake was prepared well – with a crispy outer layer – and the crabmeat tasted fresh. We found the dish to be pricey especially when only one crab cake was served.
The pan-fried fillet of sole was served with tagliatelle, butter vegetables and lemon butter sauce (US$20/-). This was a meal by itself. The batter outside was crispy and yet the fish was soft and did not taste frozen. The lemon butter sauce was a good complement to the tagliatelle.
The set dinner came with a starter, soup, a choice of the main course and dessert. Baby Lasagna was served as the starter. This came with oven roasted tomato, eggplant and goat cheese with honey glazed shallot and aged balsamic. It was quite unusual to include eggplant in the lasagna although it blended well with the other ingredients.
For soup, the café served cappuccino of green pea soup with milk mousse. It was creamy and tasty.
There was a choice of either fish or chicken for the main course. For chicken, the roasted chicken breast came with preserved lemon, cous cous, sautéed spinach and green olives. The chicken breast was cooked to perfection and the meat was not dry.
Dessert was date pudding accompanied with cinnamon, rosemary ice cream and berry coulis. The dessert took a long time to arrive. We were quite full by then and had no time to really appreciate the dessert.
The Café at The Strand can be considered one of the most expensive eating outlets in Yangon and the helpings were not substantial. Subsequently, when we ate at other restaurants, we found that they were much cheaper. The serving staff spoke good English but service was slow on that night when we were there although not many diners were present.
Address:
The Strand Hotel
92 Strand Road
Yangon, Myanmar
Opening Hours:
Breakfast: 7 am ‒ 11 am
Lunch: 11 am ‒ 6 pm
Afternoon Tea: 2 pm ‒ 6 pm
Dinner: 7 pm ‒ 9 pm
Tel: +95-1-243-337
Note: Unless otherwise stated, Biz Daily pays for all the meals reviewed in Dining.
