Warrior: Peony and I saved up and bought our first car together. We are excited to be eating at places like this restaurant in El Monte, which used to be too far for us. I love Burmese food, and this restaurant hit the spot. Every dish was solid quality and good value. The best dish was the stir-fried small shrimp, which was deliciously buttery and savory. This would be my pick of all the Burmese restaurants in LA that I know about. (I believe Daw Yee Myanmar permanently closed during “flatten the curve.”)
Peony: Cute Myanmar restaurant! They had their specialty dishes written in Burmese on the blackboard, and the waiter translated for us. Of all the dishes we ordered, the most memorable one was the shrimp, because they tasted like the freshwater [river / lake / reservoir] shrimps I used to eat growing up. They have a nuanced taste that you don’t get from ocean shrimp. I’m glad we are starting to explore places like this.
Warrior: It is solid. To be totally transparent, I think Yoma has always had the most interesting (and best) Burmese food in the LA area. The thing is, last time I went there they gave me a fork that had food crusted between all of the tines. It may sound like a little thing, but it was traumatizing to me, like seeing a roach, and I haven’t been back since. By contrast, Cetana was clean as a whistle. If I were just judging based on food, I’d recommend Yoma.
cetana’s location used to house a…i want to say malaysian-ish… place and i got the impression it morphed into burmese. i wasn’t crazy about the previous place, but if there’s new management i’d be more inclined to try it. yoma is my favorite as well, but yadi myanmar in alhambra also scratches the itch (i had a burmese roommate who cooked). a lot of people liked daw yee, but their stuff just… i can’t explain why. IIRC there was another home kitchen outfit that opened a place briefly in rosemead that had good stuff but they didn’t last more than a year. burmese food is not well represented in LA.
there used to be a burmese supermarket on mission in alhambra where i used to buy chickpea flour to make my own chickpea tofu (which is actually quite simple to make), but they seemed to have closed a while back. pity, especially given how the price of tofu (among other things) seems to have doubled.
warrior: I haven’t tried Yadi. Will do so. Thanks. Cetana is worth a shot. The shrimp were unique and good. Tea leaf salad was solid (never had a bad rendition). The dish that disappointed me there is the shan tofu salad, which was too dry and chickpea-tasting. Also, the “Burmese noodles” (rice noodles) were all clumped together so they didn’t get the flavoring ingredients. Both dishes were acceptable, though. There does seem to be a connection with the Malaysian restaurant because they have char kuay teow on the menu.
It was Nadi in Alhambra, and it has closed too* (*still doing delivery or pickup)
Sad that we’re down to two Burmese places in the SGV. I concur that Yoma is the standout, and has always had a much larger menu than the other places have had. Golden Owl, out in La Puente, closed; Nadi, closed; Daw Yee closed; Ah May, which might have been the best Burmese around, closed (it was in the plaza with the Rosemead Chengdu Taste); Rangoon Kitchen started out in San Gabriel, moved to West Covina and had a buffet before quickly sputtering out.
warrior: I think you may have meant Nadi instead of Yadi. Yes, it appears that Nadi is permanently closed. One Yelper reports:
my favorite restaurant in all of los angeles. it seems they had to close due to the world-wide communist revolution. quite sad, because the owners are kind-hearted generous people who care more about living a peaceful existence than making a profit. if you guys (owners) are ok, then please respond to this message. i just hope everything is working out with you.
i think that was the name of the place in rosemead.
took over tokyo lobby and kept a lot of their menu before discarding it and concentrating strictly on burmese. i didn’t think burmese would draw enough of a crowd for that size location.
Turns out NADI Myanmar was doing pre-order deliveries, at least they were doing so at Facebook as recently as November 23rd. I have no idea of their current status.
Heard back from NADI Myanmar. They do take orders for Saturday delivery or pickup at San Gabriel Supermarket. Saturdays only.
EDIT: Here is the revised information. Free delivery within 5 miles for $ 30 or more .
There will be delivery fees if more than 5 miles .
Starting from now we are doing PREORDER and Delivery only .
