The owner of a new food business in Salt Lake City’s Granary District approaches her cooking like art, she said.
“We can do many creations,” said Jadim Lahpai, the proprietor of Shwe Letyar Sushi, inside Woodbine Food Hall, at 545 W. 700 South.
Lahpai makes and sells fresh sushi, which she said is her “favorite food,” as well as such Burmese specialities as fermented tea leaf salad (laphet thoke), chicken stir-fry with noodles, and glutinous rice pyramids.
“I love cooking,” she said, especially because you can make “many designs, many tastes.”
Lahpai started her business through the Spice Kitchen Incubator, and opened at Woodbine on Feb. 13. Since then, her Burmese food has been sought out by people who have had it in California and elsewhere. She said she’s one of the first to sell Burmese food in Utah, and when people on the hunt for such cuisine discover Shwe Letyar Sushi, she said, “many customer is happy.”
When you visit Shwe Letyar Sushi — entering Woodbine through the main doors, it’s the last food stall on the right — you’ll see Lahpai’s story illustrated through a map above her stall.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Jadim Lahpai's logo for her business Shwe Letyar Sushi is shown on Wednesday, April 3, 2024. Lahpai might be one of the few if not only people making and selling Burmese food in Utah.
The first red dot, on the left side of the map, marks the country where Lahpai is from: Myanmar, or as it was known before 1989 (and the name she more often uses for it), Burma.
Lahpai grew up there on a tea farm, and learned how to cook with her mother, according to Spice Kitchen’s website. As Lahpai grew older, she cooked for her five siblings.
The second red dot marks Malaysia, where Lahpai spent five years after graduating from high school, Spice Kitchen’s website states. There, she met her future husband, and spent almost two years working in a sushi restaurant, she said.
The third dot marks the United States, where Lahpai eventually emigrated. The map’s dark blue background represents the enormous Pacific Ocean, which she had to cross to get here. Twelve years ago, she and her husband settled in Utah, where they started Shwe Letyar Sushi.
“Shwe” means “gold,” and is a nickname for Myanmar, Lahpai said. And “letyar” refers to the act of making or creating something.
The tastes of Shwe Letyar Sushi
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) A special sashimi customer order from Shwe Letyar Sushi at Woodbine Food Hall in Salt Lake, Wednesday, April 3, 2024.
Lahpai said that Utah isn’t so different from where she grew up in Myanmar, with its “big mountains and not too much people,” she said.
Since Burmese cuisine is so new to Utah, Lahpai said some people are a “little scared” to try her food. But she said that out of 10 people, two won’t like the food and eight will love the food — and out of those eight, three to four will think it’s “amazing,” she said.
The top half of the menu features the Burmese homestyle dishes that Lahpai grew up eating. The bottom half is sushi, with the Shwe combo roll, California roll, chef’s choice roll and others.
Lahpai’s most popular sushi roll is the Shwe combo roll, which comes with crab and fried shrimp and combines spicy and sweet flavors, she said.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Boba Shwe Tea at Shwe Letyar Sushi at Woodbine Food Hall in Salt Lake, on Wednesday, April 3, 2024.
The Shwe tea is made with a fragrant black tea imported from Myanmar. Although the Shwe tea is mixed with evaporated milk and has boba pearls stirred in, it harkens back to the Burmese tradition of welcoming visitors to one’s home with a cup of plain tea, Lahpai said.
The tasty Burmese-style chicken stir-fry is made with chicken, tofu, impossibly thin rice noodles, and vegetables, including celery, cabbage, carrots, onions and garlic. Lahpai said she doesn’t cook the dish with a lot of oil, so it’s lighter to eat.
“Healthy food is important for people, everybody. Not only me, for every person,” she said.
The fermented tea leaf salad is a spicy and strikingly flavored mixture of fried soybeans, cabbage, tomato, peanuts, Thai bird chiles, hydrated tea leaves and dried shrimp.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Burmese samosas from Shwe Letyar Sushi at Woodbine Food Hall in Salt Lake, Wednesday, April 3, 2024.
Lahpai said kids love her Burmese samosas, which are fried triangular pastries filled with chicken and potatoes.
For dessert, try the glutinous rice pyramids. To make these, Lahpai first creates a dough with glutinous rice powder and coconut cream. Then she forms the dough into pyramids, and fills them with sesame paste that’s sweetened with rock sugar. Then she wraps the pyramids in banana leaves and steams them. The result is a chewy confection that’s only lightly sweet, and served like a present that you get to unwrap.
