Just as cross border influence is inevitable in economics and politics, it is clearly visible in Burmese cooking. China, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and India all play their part. Any visitor to Myanmar cannot fail to come across food production and that locally produced food can be enjoyed in local restaurants and hotels throughout the country. The truly local restaurants can be very heavy handed on the use of dried fish paste which is too much for most Western palates and standards of hygiene are variable so on my recent visit we turned to one of the best ‘high end’ restaurants, The Green Elephant, to show us how great Burmese dishes are prepared. The chefs there use traditional Burmese recipes but have the experience of serving visitors to the country for many years to modify some of them.