Food blogger MiMi Aye recently published her first cookbook Noodle! I love that there’s an exclamation mark at the end of the title because that’s pretty much how I feel about noodles – they deserve a happy yell of pure joy. Click here to read my review of Noodle!

I first ‘met’ MiMi on Twitter, where her zany sense of humour and love of all things noodle instantly made me a fan. However, I must admit that in recent months MiMi’s adorable little girl (born while MiMi was writing Noodle!) is the one who has really captured my heart – her magical powers of meat-summoning and her insistence that plums are cakes makes this mini-foodie utterly irresistible.

I’m really excited to share this Q&A with MiMi today!

Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m Burmese, but was born in England a few months after my parents left Burma. I’m married to my college sweetheart (we’ve just had our tenth wedding anniversary), and we have an 18 month old daughter. I love cooking, but actually prefer eating out!

Three fun facts about you that we wouldn’t read in your “official” bio.

• I’m on a movie poster next to Iggy Pop – it’s for the music documentary All Tomorrow’s Parties to which I contributed (pic attached).
• I was on University Challenge, the English equivalent of College Bowl. We lost badly.
• I’m mildly obsessed with cutlery – there’s a cute little shop near my house called Hamilton Antiques, and I keep coming back with weird silver mustard spoons and sugar tongs.

There are so many great recipes in Noodle! Which one is your favourite or the one you cook the most often?

Thanks! I love Mogok Meeshay (Mogok Pork and Round Rice Noodles) the most – partly because of my heritage, because Mogok is a Burmese hill-town where my mum and her family are from, and partly because it’s so damn delicious with its sweet and sour pork sauce. My husband loves it too and requests it regularly.

Mogok Meeshay

What is your favourite type of noodle to cook with?

Rice noodles – usually they just require soaking, and they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes – flat, round, thin, fat.

What are the “signature” dishes and/or ingredients of Burmese cooking? What are must-try’s for someone who’s new to Burmese food?

Our national dish is mohinga which is like a fish chowder served with fritters, coriander, eggs, lime juice, chilli.

Otherwise, food in Burma is pretty varied as we have 135 ethnic groups! I favour the food from Upper Burma, as that’s the food my mum brought me up on, so it’s dishes like Shan Khao Swè (Shan Noodles – I’m actually part Shan), Htamin Jin (Shan Sour Rice), Kyar Zun Jet (a smoky vermicelli, shrimp and mushroom soup), and Mandalay Mohntee (a chicken noodle salad), and I’d heartily recommend all of those dishes!

Signature ingredients are garlic, ginger, lime, onions, coriander (roots, stems and leaves), turmeric, and fish sauce or shrimp paste depending on the strength of the dish.

And we love our pickles – particularly mohnnyin-tjin, which is a Shan pickle primarily made from mustard greens – and our relishes which are similar to Thai nam prik.

Shan Sour Rice

When you’re not cooking up amazing noodle recipes, what are some of your other favourite dishes (or places in London) to eat?

My favourite food, apart from Burmese, is Japanese. I’ll always order sashimi to start, and then sansai (wild vegetable) udon and mixed tempura. I’m fond of Asakusa in Mornington Crescent, as well as the Eat Tokyo chain. I can’t wait for my friend, Tim Anderson to open his restaurant Nanban (he won MasterChef a couple of years ago).

I’m also a big fan of Vietnamese food – my favourite lunch place is a tiny cafe near my work called City Caphe  where I always order the Bo Bun Hue (lemongrass beef noodle soup).

Lastly, I adore raw seafood much to my mother’s disgust, and have been known to go the Oyster Happy Hour at Wright Brothers in Spitalfields Market where they sell oysters for £1 each.

Your adorable little girl was born while you were writing Noodle! Has becoming a mother changed the way you cook meals?

Batch cooking is my saviour now, as is anything that you can eat cold or with one hand! She eats pretty much everything though with her six teeth, so I’m quite lucky.

You’ve successfully made the transition from awesome blogger to published cookbook author. Any tips for other bloggers who aspire to write a cookbook?

Publishers love a USP [unique selling point] for the book’s theme. If you can think of a good or unusual hook, then go ahead and pitch for all you’ve got. Although, in my case, they already wanted this book, and they approached me!

Do you have plans for another cookbook?

I do, but nothing’s set in stone yet!

I know you’re a geek (like me) – so please tell me – who is your favourite Doctor from the Doctor Who series?

It was Matt Smith’s Eleven actually – I thought he was great at depicting a very old mind in a young body. And he was weird in a way that appealed to me. But I’ve loved Peter Capaldi since I was 14 and saw him in a detective show called Chandler and Co, and I worshipped him in The Thick of It, so I think he’ll be my new favourite (I may have squealed when I heard he’d been cast).

A very special thank you to MiMi for taking the time to answer my questions! You can learn more about MiMi on her blog (www.meemalee.com) or follow her on Twitter (@meemalee).

You can purchase Noodle! from The Book Depository (free worldwide shipping) or Amazon.

All images used in this post belong to MiMi Aye and are used with her permission.

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. However, I am part of The Book Depository and Amazon affiliate programs and the product links shared in this post are affiliate links – if you click them and purchase something, I will receive a tiny commission fee (at no extra cost to you) which helps me keep this site running. Please read my disclosure policy for more information