Mohinga is the Burmese national breakfast — a fish noodle soup built on lemongrass, chickpea flour, banana stem, and a long-simmered catfish stock that thickens itself as it cooks. It is the dish that, more than any other on Beat Bobby Flay, asks the question: has the cook eaten this in someone's home, or only read about it in a cookbook?
Jocelyn Law-Yone ran Thamee in Washington, DC — the country's most ambitious Burmese restaurant, which closed in 2025. Her mohinga was built on a stock that had been going since the morning, thickened with toasted chickpea flour the way her grandmother did it. Bobby's, per the broadcast, was "missing the funk." The funk is the fish sauce and the fermented shrimp paste. There is no faking it.