You say Burma, I say Myanmar

It seems like I just wrote a post about one Burmese place, only to go to another Burmese place a few weeks later.  I took SB out for a (very) belated birthday dinner.  Her choice was Mandalay, a Burmese/Mandarin restaurant in the Inner Richmond that lives in the shadow of the other very famous Burmese restaurant in the same neighborhood — Burma Superstar.

I had high expectations, and was getting pretty excited just holding the menu...

I don’t know what’s up with restaurants that refuse to take down their Valentine’s decorations, but Mandalay was one of them.

Will you be my valentine... 3 days late?

I was really excited about this place because SB had spoken very highly of it, and it received great reviews on Yelp.  One of the recommended dishes was the Green Tea Salad.  It came out in a beautiful arrangement of separate piles of green tea powder, nuts, sesame seeds, fried garlic, and secret sauce.  When I took out my camera, the waitress shot me a dirty look.  Here is the conversation that ensued:

Waitress: You’re not going to take a picture, are you?
Me: Yes, I am.
W: Well, you can’t.
Me: (staring at her in confusion and annoyance) Why not?
W: You just can’t.  It’s our policy.
Me: (hrrmph.  Giving her the death stare.)

You know, it’s one thing if she just told me in a nice way, “This is our signature dish, and our official restaurant policy is that no pictures be taken of it before we mix the ingredients.  We appreciate your understanding.”  But because she was so indirect, I got really annoyed.  When I told the boytoy about this later, he said that I should have taken a picture of the waitress instead of the salad.  What a fabulous idea.  As usual, I wasn’t that quick and was still stewing in anger as she explained what all of the ingredients were and proceeded to mix the salad.  She graciously allowed me to take a picture of the salad after mixing.  How nice.

The Green Tea Salad, post-mixing.

We ordered two of the most popular dishes on the menu: Shrimp with Okra and Chicken and Basil.  Both were really good, though I preferred the shrimp dish, mostly because the okra was cooked to the right texture (not too mushy).  The chicken was good too, but seemed kinda standard.  We also got the coconut rice which was delicious.

Shrimp with Okra

Chicken and Basil

Overall, I thought Mandalay was very good, but because of its location, it’s unlikely that I’ll go out of my way to go there again.

Three words: Mango. Garlic. Noodles.

Plateful of yumminess

No matter how full I am, thinking about the mango garlic noodles at Nan Yang always makes me salivate.  Seriously, I have considered ordering 2-3 plates at a time, eating one (or more) of said plates, and bringing the rest home.  What appears to be a fairly simple mixture of mangoes, red onion, scallions, fried garlic and noodles results in surprising complexity as sweetness, spice, savoriness, and garlic “zing” hit your tastebuds all at once in a flavor explosion. I swear they put crack in the sauce; the noodles are that addictive.

Nan Yang is a Burmese restaurant that I’ve been to a handful of times.  Yes, the garlic noodles are stellar, but everything else is fairly standard.  It’s good, but nothing to write home about.  For instance, the last time I was there, JF and I ordered the mango garlic noodles and the curry eggplant.  It was good, but sort of dry… something that would be good as a side dish instead of the main entree.  Also, I don’t understand why it was served with black olives.  Is there some Mediterranean influence on Burma that I’m not aware of? Next time, I will implement the strategy of ordering 3 plates of garlic noodles.  Yay noodles!

Curried eggplant