Mont (food) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Mont

A plate of mont kywe the, a rice flour cake sweetened with jaggery and garnished with grated coconut
Type	Snack or dessert
Place of origin	Myanmar (Burma)
Region or state	Southeast Asia
Associated national cuisine	Burmese cuisine
Main ingredients	Various
Similar dishes	Bánh, Kakanin, Khanom, Kue, Kuih

In Myanmar, the word mont (Burmese: မုန့်) means "snack". It refers to many different kinds of food. These can be sweet desserts or savory dishes. They are cooked in many ways, like steaming, baking, frying, or boiling. Foods made from wheat or rice flour are usually called mont. But the word can also mean some noodle dishes, like mohinga. Burmese mont are often eaten with tea in the morning or afternoon.

Each type of mont has a special name. This name usually describes the snack. For example, htoe mont means "snack that is prodded". Mont lone yay baw means "floating snack balls". The word mont is also used in other languages nearby, like Shan and Jingpho.

The term mont is not just for traditional Burmese foods. It can also describe many other things. For example, Western-style bread is called paung mont. Chinese moon cakes are la mont. Even ice cream is called yay ge mont. And tinned biscuits are mont thitta.

What are Mont Made From?

A Burmese street vendor making mont lin maya in Yangon.

Many Burmese mont use special kinds of rice. This rice has less of a substance called amylose. Sweet Burmese mont are usually not as sweet as snacks from other parts of Southeast Asia. Instead, they get their natural sweetness from ingredients like grated coconut, coconut milk, or sticky rice.

Different Kinds of Mont

A vendor near Kyaiktiyo Pagoda selling many traditional mont snacks.

There are so many different kinds of mont! Their names often start or end with the word mont. Here are some of the most common traditional types.

Noodle Mont

Some noodle dishes are made with fresh rice vermicelli. This noodle is called mont phat. These dishes often have mont in their name.

• Mont hinga (မုန့်ဟင်းခါး) – This is a savory noodle soup. It is made in a tasty fish broth.
• Mont di (မုန့်တီ) – This is a group of different noodle dishes. They are found all over Myanmar and use mont phat.
• Mandalay mont di (မန္တလေးမုန့်တီ) - This is a noodle salad from Mandalay. It uses thick, round rice noodles.

Savory Mont Snacks

These mont are not sweet. They are often eaten as a light meal or snack.

A vendor preparing yay mont.

• Betha mont (ဘဲသားမုန့်) – This is like a curry puff. It has a savory filling.
• Htamane (ထမနဲ) – This is a special seasonal treat. It is made with sticky rice, coconut, peanuts, ginger, and sesame seeds.
• Khanon htok (ခနုံထုပ်) – This is a stuffed savory crepe.
• Mont lin maya (မုန့်လင်မယား) – This name means "husband and wife snack." It is a popular street food.
• Mont kyo lein (မုန့်ကြိုးလိမ်) – This snack looks like a pretzel. It is made from rice and bean flour.
• Nga mont (ငါးမုန့်) – These are deep-fried fish crackers.
• Yay mont (ရေမုန့်) – This is a very thin, crispy pancake. It is made from rice batter.

Sweet Mont Desserts

These mont are sweet and often enjoyed after meals or as a treat.

Mont lone yay baw is a traditional snack for the Thingyan water festival.

Mont pya thalet, a batter cake shaped like a honeycomb.

• Bein mont (ဘိန်းမုန့်) – This is a pancake made with rice flour, palm sugar, coconut chips, and peanuts. It is often topped with poppy seeds.
• Htanthi mont (ထန်းသီးမုန့်) – This is a steamed rice cake. It is similar to Chinese fa gao.
• Htoe mont (ထိုးမုန့်) – This is a pudding-like dessert. It is made from sticky rice, sugar, coconut, and oil.
• Kyaukkyaw (ကျောက်ကျော) – This is a jelly dessert. It is made with coconut milk.
• Masakat (မာစကတ်) – This is a clear rice pudding. It is similar to Karachi halwa.
• Mont baung (မုန့်ပေါင်း) – These are steamed rice cakes. They are similar to Indonesian putu piring.
• Mont khaw byin (မုန့်ခေါပျဉ်) – This is a steamed sticky rice cake. It is topped with coconut shavings.
• Kway lapaysa (အတပ်တစ်ရာမုန့်) – This is a multi-layered jelly pudding. It was brought to Myanmar by Chinese-Burmese people.
• Mont kyazi (မုန့်ကြာစေ့) – These are small balls of boiled sticky rice. They are served in palm sugar syrup.
• Mont kywe the (မုန့်ကျွဲသည်း) – This is a rice flour pudding. It is sweetened with jaggery (a type of palm sugar).
• Mont let hsaung (မုန့်လက်ဆောင်း) - This is a Burmese-style cendol. It is a sweet iced dessert.
• Mont let kauk (မုန့်လက်ကောက်) – These are sticky rice donuts. They are shaped like bracelets.
• Mont lone yay baw (မုန့်လုံးရေပေါ်) – These are "floating snack balls." They are often eaten during the Thingyan water festival.
• Mont lone gyi (မုန့်လုံးကြီး) – These are steamed sweet rice dumplings. They have sweet fillings, similar to Chinese tangyuan.
• Mont pya thalet (မုန့်ပျားသလက်) – This is a batter cake. It is shaped like a honeycomb.

Mont sein baung

• Mont sein baung (မုန့်စိမ်းပေါင်း) – This is a steamed rice cake.
• Mont hsi gyaw (မုန့်ဆီကြော်) – These are fried sweet pancakes. They are made from sticky rice.
• Nankhatai (နံကထိုင်) – These are Indian shortbread cookies.
• Onno thagu (အုန်းနို့သာကူ) – This is a sago with coconut milk pudding.
• Sanwin makin (ဆနွင်းမကင်း) – This is a semolina pudding cake. It is made with sugar, coconut, and butter.
• Shwe htamin (ရွှေထမင်း) – This is a brown sticky rice cake. It is sweetened with jaggery.
• Shwe yin aye (ရွှေရင်အေး) – This dessert's name means "cools the golden chest." It is a popular cold dessert.
• Thagu byin (သာဂူပြင်) – This is a sago pudding. It is sweetened with coconut milk and condensed milk.