South Bay: Burma Bistro
JH, who I met through CL during our trip to the Redwoods back in 2013, was someone who I always wanted know better and spend more time with. When I found out that she will be moving to Singapore with her husband, I knew I had to take action before it was too late. T, who met JH on the same trip, agreed.
It seemed like JH felt the same way because she was the one who actually reached out to us first. And that's how we, along with CL and CV, ended up at Burma Bistro for dinner one night:
Burma Bistro had just opened close to T's workplace, so we figured it was the perfect place to meet since T works late and we're always looking to try someplace new.
When I arrived, I found T and CV standing outside. Apparently they had gone in to find the restaurant completely empty. Feeling uncertain about the place, they'd backed out, saying to the servers that they would be back.
Awkward.
By the time the rest of our party arrived, Burma Bistro was still pretty empy inside:
We didn't let that discourage us though. Each of us picked one thing off the menu and this is what we ended up with.
We started of with some Burmese samosas ($6 for 2):
Unlike Indian samosas, Burmese ones are flatter and come in a thinner, crispy skin (think fried egg roll). Similar to their Indian counterparts, the Burmese samosas are filled with potato and other veggies, but lack the Indian spices.
Of course we had to get the tea leaf salad ($10), which is apparently as Burmese as you can get:
The pickled tea leaves are what give the salad its pungent flavor. The tea leaf salad at Burma Bistro comes with Romaine lettuch, tomato, toasted garlic, crispy yellow beans, roasted sesame seeds, and peanuts. I've had some good tea leaf salad in my time, but this one was a bit too much for me. The tea leaves were so bitter that I gave my portion to T.
The garlic noodles ($10) had some pretty good reviews on Yelp:
It can't get simpler than noodles, garlic, chicken, and green onions will some kind of special house sauce. Simple, tasty, but not anything to really get excited about. In face, it kind of tasted like instant noodles that one could prepare at home.
The pumpkin shrimp ($14) was probably one of the favorites of the night:
The shrimp were plump and the sauce went well with rice.
The moh hin ga ($9), a traditional Burmese soup, was another favorite:
Basically a fish noodle soup, the moh hin ga is made with fish, lemon grass, garlic, onion, ginger, crushed rice powder, bean fritters, thin rice noodles, eggs cilantro, and chili powder. I could have done without the noodles, but the soup itself was pretty darn good.
All in all, a pretty satisfying meal, though definitely not the best Burmese food I've ever had. Prices for certain dishes are also a little on the high side considering the portion sizes. Service, however, was great.
I probably wouldn't go out of my way to try Burma Bistro again, but it was definitely a great place just to sit and eat and talk for a long time. While there was never a huge line out the door (so we never felt pressured to leave), the restaurant definitely filled up over time.
Best of luck in Singapore, JH! Can't wait to hear about all your adventures there!
Speaking of adventures, I will be going on one of my own soon. My posts have been kind of sparse lately because I haven't been going out a lot. Mostly, I've just been being good and biding my time until my Peru trip at the end of the month.
That's right. PERU. I'll be there for two weeks, so don't expect much from me until after I come back mid-July.
I can't wait to share about all the awesome things that will be going into my belly in Peru!
Burma Bistro
2135 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA 95050
(408) 372-5422
http://www.burmabistro.net/
It seemed like JH felt the same way because she was the one who actually reached out to us first. And that's how we, along with CL and CV, ended up at Burma Bistro for dinner one night:
Burma Bistro had just opened close to T's workplace, so we figured it was the perfect place to meet since T works late and we're always looking to try someplace new.
When I arrived, I found T and CV standing outside. Apparently they had gone in to find the restaurant completely empty. Feeling uncertain about the place, they'd backed out, saying to the servers that they would be back.
Awkward.
By the time the rest of our party arrived, Burma Bistro was still pretty empy inside:
We didn't let that discourage us though. Each of us picked one thing off the menu and this is what we ended up with.
We started of with some Burmese samosas ($6 for 2):
Unlike Indian samosas, Burmese ones are flatter and come in a thinner, crispy skin (think fried egg roll). Similar to their Indian counterparts, the Burmese samosas are filled with potato and other veggies, but lack the Indian spices.
Of course we had to get the tea leaf salad ($10), which is apparently as Burmese as you can get:
The pickled tea leaves are what give the salad its pungent flavor. The tea leaf salad at Burma Bistro comes with Romaine lettuch, tomato, toasted garlic, crispy yellow beans, roasted sesame seeds, and peanuts. I've had some good tea leaf salad in my time, but this one was a bit too much for me. The tea leaves were so bitter that I gave my portion to T.
The garlic noodles ($10) had some pretty good reviews on Yelp:
It can't get simpler than noodles, garlic, chicken, and green onions will some kind of special house sauce. Simple, tasty, but not anything to really get excited about. In face, it kind of tasted like instant noodles that one could prepare at home.
The pumpkin shrimp ($14) was probably one of the favorites of the night:
The shrimp were plump and the sauce went well with rice.
The moh hin ga ($9), a traditional Burmese soup, was another favorite:
Basically a fish noodle soup, the moh hin ga is made with fish, lemon grass, garlic, onion, ginger, crushed rice powder, bean fritters, thin rice noodles, eggs cilantro, and chili powder. I could have done without the noodles, but the soup itself was pretty darn good.
All in all, a pretty satisfying meal, though definitely not the best Burmese food I've ever had. Prices for certain dishes are also a little on the high side considering the portion sizes. Service, however, was great.
I probably wouldn't go out of my way to try Burma Bistro again, but it was definitely a great place just to sit and eat and talk for a long time. While there was never a huge line out the door (so we never felt pressured to leave), the restaurant definitely filled up over time.
Best of luck in Singapore, JH! Can't wait to hear about all your adventures there!
Speaking of adventures, I will be going on one of my own soon. My posts have been kind of sparse lately because I haven't been going out a lot. Mostly, I've just been being good and biding my time until my Peru trip at the end of the month.
That's right. PERU. I'll be there for two weeks, so don't expect much from me until after I come back mid-July.
I can't wait to share about all the awesome things that will be going into my belly in Peru!
Burma Bistro
2135 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA 95050
(408) 372-5422
http://www.burmabistro.net/
Comments
Post a Comment