Burma Burma has won over the hearts of Kolkata gastronomes with light, flavourful yet soulful Burmese cuisine and their new menu lives up to the standards with an all-new selection of delicious small plates, refreshing salads, hearty mains, chilled bubble teas, and nostalgia-laced plated desserts and ice creams.
A recent trip to Mandalay and Shan in Burma led co-founder Ankit Gupta and chef Ansab to rustle up the new small plates presenting a contemporary take on the dishes borrowed and replicated from Burma’s street food, as well as tribal and heirloom recipes passed down through generations.
As we visited the outlet on a sultry after noon, the newly launched coolants like Berry blush made with hibiscus tea and pickled raspberries, and the Peru lemonade, which has a tangy spicy taste lent by guava, lime, Sichuan pepper, and crushed juniper berries, soothed us instantly. The tasting session began with Burma’s national dish, Mohinga noodle soup, a lemongrass-infused lentil and banana stem soup with rice vermicelli and crisps. The unusually delectable combination of the familiar ingredients truly took us by surprise.
Aunty Pey Pey’s guava salad, named after a popular salad shop owner, had medium ripe guavas tossed in roasted chilli and crunchy peanuts blend, very similar to our street-style guava chaat. What won us over was the Crunchy shiitake fingers, which had semolina and hemp-seed crusted shiitake mushroom slices, fried crisp and served with creamy cashew and smoked Bandel cheese dip. We also tasted their Soba noodles with tea leaf pesto and a plate of Charred broccoli and smoked Burmese cheese, served with a tangy and spicy Malar sauce.
For the mains, we savoured every bit of the Mandalay noodle bowl, a flavourful and comforting udon noodle bowl with coconut curry, charred bok choy and tofu, topped with crunchy shiitake bits, very similar to a Khow suey, and a spicy Smoked chilli rice bowl consisting of Jasmine rice wok tossed in smoked chilli sauce and served with seasonal greens and crackers. We ended the affair with a portion of Rangoon baked milk with Vanilla whipped ganache, Raspberry gel, Fried brioche and Almond nougatine, and the toothsome Black forest.
Price for 2: Rs 1,800+