How a Burmese Street Vendor Serves Over 500 People at the Queens Night Market

I have been selling Burmese food since 1995,

which is very rare to get in New York City.

The Queens night market give me a spot, a tent,

an opportunity to serve my food to the public.

This is definitely more difficult than having a restaurant.

You have to bring the whole kitchen over here,

pots, and pans, and plates.

One of the fun things about being a vendor

is that you can expect all the unexpected.

I might be preparing between 500 to 700 plates tonight.

[Myo chuckles]

[upbeat music]

Hi, my name is Myo Lin Thway.

Welcome to Queens International Night Market.

Since opening in 2015, the Queens International Market

has represented over 100 countries.

I represent the country called Burma,

officially changed to Myanmar.

I've been here since day one,

and as far as I understand either I was the first

or the second applicant that ever applied

to the Queens night market.

It opens at 5:00.

There are gonna be over 15,000 customers coming in tonight.

All right, so it is 2:30 right now,

so we gotta unload the van and start preparing the food.

I have my nephew, Al Intan,

and my mother-in-law, Kye Namew,

and my father-in-law, David.

They are my hardcore crew over here.

I have all the best in-laws.

All right.

This is where I keep my broth, the Ohno Kaukswe broth,

also known as coconut ramen.

This is a generator.

It took me about like half an hour to load the van,

but of course it take me 15 minutes to unload the van.

I am friend with this tent, that tent,

over there, over there, over there.

The whole place is my friend.

At the end of the night I will go to each tent

and I will grab their food and exchange with my food,

and that's how I also taste

the international food over here.

[upbeat music]

So this is the griddle on which I griddle my palatas.

I have this griddle since the beginning,

and this has been my best friend since day one.

The main item that I'm selling

for the past eight years is called palata.

Palata is a flat bread.

It's made out of wheat flour dough.

You have to basically spread the dough.

It gets thinner and thinner and thinner

until it cannot no longer stretch,

and after that I fold it, I griddle it.

That'll become flaky once it is done.

Almost done, almost done.

It's gonna be a little bit messy right now

because we just finished unloading.

We have three tables

for where the customer would be ordering food,

where we would griddling the palatas.

These are two rice cookers,

one is for the coconut ramen broth

and another one is for udon noodle salad chicken.

I choose rice cookers because they maintain

a better temperature throughout the day.

[Myo speaking in foreign language]

No, we need to put this all the way up over there, actually.

Not over here.

All right.

[Myo speaking in foreign language]

This is definitely more difficult than having a restaurant.

We have been putting up this sign for over eight years

and today we put the sign in the wrong way, so you tell me.

When I was a student, I was never ready to take a test.

I was always falling behind.

Right now I also feel like I'm rushing

to the opening hour anyway.

So where is my propane?

Okay, so I'm gonna set up the burner

to start cooking chicken curry.

For this one I can use one tank for two weeks.

For the griddle, I'm gonna need one propane gas every night.

Pretty much, I'm a handyman over here.

I do everything,

and I also clean up at the end of the night.

[upbeat music]

It is 3:30 and I should be start cooking chicken curry

and everything else.

[upbeat music]

This one, after a couple of years,

I don't keep recipe anymore.

It just pretty much by heart, yeah.

Depends on how I feel today.

Chicken curry palata where there's a plain palata

with chicken curry dipping sauce on the side.

I have to put some water first.

I have to bring everything.

We use all types of peas, but the yellow split pea

is one of the most popular item.

They give the most umami taste of all the peas.

This is a very stubborn pea, so I precook it yesterday.

I pressure cook it for half an hour.

I put salt, I put a little bit of sugar.

Burmese food has a little bit of sweetness

and a little bit of spiciness,

so I'm also gonna have to put the chili flakes.

Chili flakes is one of the most important ingredients

in Burmese food.

Burmese food is known for some kind of spice in there.

Burmese curry is a little bit different than Indian curry

because Indian masala is usually

on a little bit stronger side.

The Burmese masala is always on a smoother side,

a little bit toned down sides.

Oh by the way, this is gonna be fish sauce.

Being next to Thailand and next to Cambodia,

we use a lot of fish sauce.

That gives a little bit more depth into the the dish

than any other sauce.

All right, let me taste it and see how things are here.

Nope, I need a little bit more flavor

and some more spice as well.

Perfect.

The base is complete.

I'm happy with that.

I'm gonna add the chicken in and the potato in

to finish up the dish.

The chicken is being cooked, we braised it.

It is extremely important that we serve these customer

as quick as possible,

so I have to prepare these things ahead of time.

Now it's looking more like a curry

and looks a little bit delicious as well.

These potatoes are pre-fried actually

By the time 5:00 it's gonna be ready

so now I'm gonna start preparing the Nan Gyi Kaukswe Thoke.

It's also known as udon noodle salad

and the Ohno Kaukswe also known as coconut ramen.

Nan gyi basically mean it's a thick noodle.

So this is the meat sauce for Nan Gyi Kaukswe Thoke

It is pretty much minced chicken cooked in paprika oil.

The dish is this rice noodles,

I sprinkle a little bit of fish sauce,

I top roasted bean powder.

Burmese people use a lot of roasted bean powder.

One thing I understand is that it gives

a very delicious umami taste,

and on top of it I put the meat sauce and egg,

cilantro, onion, chili flakes, and lime.

It is really delicious.

All right, we are gonna move to the, Ohno Kaukswe.

Ohno mean coconut milk, kaukswe mean noodles,

so basically it is noodles that goes with coconut milk.

So the broth, the base is chicken.

We have to basically boil the chicken bone

for a certain amount of hours,

and once again we put bean powder

to thicken it up a little bit,

as well as minced chicken, onion, garlic.

You could say we use bean powder in quite a few dishes.

All right, it is 4:30

so I should be start flipping the palata.

It's gonna be half an hour before the people coming in.

[upbeat music]

[van engine revving]

[Security] We may need one of your guys to steer.

We're gonna try to push this out.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, Al Intan.

The battery is dead.

[Security] The battery's dead?

Yeah. I left the battery on for like 45 minutes

or an hour, I guess, and now the battery is dead,

and we gotta move the car and I can't move the car,

and people are trying to push it out,

and I don't know how we're gonna do that.

Okay, okay.

At least the car is moving now, which is a good thing.

One of the fun things about being a vendor

is that you can expect all the unexpected over here.

There is no such thing that you cannot solve it.

There's always a way to solve it and it's always fun.

At the end of the day, this is a a new experience.

The show must go on.

All right, let's start flipping the palata.

The dough is very simple.

It is wheat flour, water, and salt.

That's it. No yeast, no nothing.

So palata, half of it should be crispy,

half of it should be a little bit,

I say, delightfully chewy.

This is a very popular dish in Myanmar right now.

In every street corner you're gonna see palata stand.

First of all, you flatten this out

and make sure that the edges

are a little bit thinner than the centerpiece.

And now one hand, one palm down, one palm up,

and you keep on doing it until it stretch out

a little bit thinner and thinner and thinner,

and there you go.

Oh, sorry.

It always happen when I'm trying to show off.

It is just vegetable oil.

A lot of people use ghee or butter,

but for me I will make sure that all the vegan customer

could be able to consume as well.

Back in Burma, my father, he is a person who loves to cook,

and one day he said that, You know what?

With all the food that I know how to cook,

there's a one palata that I don't know how to make it.

So he hire a freelance palata maker,

and he made him make the palata at home.

And after three times,

basically I learned how to make palata as well.

That's this plain palata, basically.

Just plain flatbread, nothing inside.

And now I'm about to make the Keema Palata,

which is like minced chicken, onion, egg,

and cilantro stuffed inside.

Today I'm making a little bit over 200 Keema Palata.

So basically, in a good night I will serve

a little bit over 400 palata.

It is extremely important that we serve these customer

as quick as possible,

so I have to prepare these things ahead of time,

get it set, and serve, serve, serve, serve.

I've been doing this for like a few dozen years

and I'm pretty much getting better every year,

so I'm still learning I guess.

So the challenging thing about making the palata

in this kind of environment is the wind,

especially today is a little bit windy day

and you are flipping the kind of like fan light thingy,

and then it is extremely hard to get it perfect.

All right, so this will be the last one

that I'll be preparing because the doors

are about to be opening over here.

[upbeat music]

It is 5:00 now, the gate is opening,

[Security] Okay, let's go.

and the customers are coming in right now.

So I'll be very busy from now on.

Thank you very much for following me the whole day.

I hope you have a sense of what it is

to be Queens night market vendor,

[upbeat music]

and I hope to see you back again soon.

Go and try some other food over there.

Bye.