Burma SuperStar
309 Clement St. (x 4th Ave.)
burmasuperstar.com
Photo: yelp.com
For those of you who don’t know, it was my birthday awhile ago. To celebrate, it was someone’s idea to go big and go to Burma Superstar. This restaurant, as far as I can tell, is legendary. People who’ve been rave about it, people who haven’t been have heard other people rave about it. It’s kind of a big deal. Every time bbg and I go to Clement, the place is packed and people are outside waiting. Like, a lot of people. I’ve always wanted to try it out, but I’m an impatient person and we never did end up going… until now!
Before we begin, you’re probably asking yourself, where is Burma exactly? To which, I would say, ignorant! Let me teach you a thing or two…. Burma is in Southeast Asia, surrounded by China, Laos, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, and water. As such, its food has influences from all of those countries. The country itself is freaking huge. To learn more about this extraordinary country no one seems to know much about, please visit here. I did.
Onward! I mentioned the group of people always waiting outside the place, right? We figured if we went on a Monday night, we’d be ok. Nope. Our wait was about 45 minutes, outside, in the cold. Here’s a tip: they don’t take reservations, but you can call ahead of time and put your name on their list. They can give you a time estimate and call you when your table is ready. The catch is that if they call your cell phone you have to be there in about two seconds or they give your table away. Trust me, I was sitting out there for 45 minutes and I saw the hostess give away more than one table. Hah!
We finally get in and after staring at the menu outside for a long while, we order pretty much immediately: their famous Rainbow Salad, chicken casserole with cardamom cinnamon rice, sesame beef, and SuperStar Noodles. Plus a Thai iced tea and ginger lemonade. Here we go!
The Rainbow Salad has been featured on the Food Network (according to the menu) and contains a whopping 22 ingredients! The salad is brought out on a square bowl with small portions of the ingredients laid out next to each other. The waiter points out each ingredient and mixes them together in a taramind dressing. The salad features four types of noodles, so it’s more of a noodle salad than a regular cabbage salad. I think the 22 ingredients is impressive, but when you eat it, I don’t know how much of an impact each ingredient makes. The dressing is very, very tangy and has a nice spicy kick to it. The spice is enough to give your lips a little tingle and the tangy-ness is enough to make you pucker a little. It’s an interesting mix, but very tasty. Tasty enough that bbg ate some, and then had seconds! (He never eats salad and is even disgusted by it.) Bbg ate it, twice (!), it’s that good.
After we finish the salad the rest of the food comes out. The sesame beef is the only thing we order that isn’t Burmese, and you can tell right off the bat from it’s name that it’s Chinese. While it’s like any other Chinese dish you can get at any other Chinese restaurant around, it’s far and away a much higher quality than the regular stuff. The meat is incredibly tender and melts in your mouth. Its thinly sliced and looks a little red, but is far from chewy and tough. The beef is smothered in a heavy, dark, sweet and slightly spicy sauce and sprinkled with sesame seeds (to remind you of what you’re eating). I liked it, but definitely needed some white rice with it. I would say the sauce is like most sauces you’d get at a Chinese restaurant, probably less greasy.
The chicken casserole with rice reminded me of Indian and Ethiopian food I’ve had before – maybe the cardamom and cinnamon? The braised chicken comes covered in yellow rice in a clay pot. The chicken comes on the bone (unfortunately), but is very very very tender and easily comes off the bone. The meat is very juicy and flavorful. The casserole comes with a few pieces of shrimp that just tasted like shrimp. The rice is also very tasty and flavorful. I liked it, but the flavoring was so much so that I didn’t want to eat the rice like I normally eat rice: with meat to sort of dilute strong flavors. The rice combined with the meat is nice, but maybe a little overwhelming. The raisins in the mix were nice little sweet surprises!
Our last dish was the SuperStar Noodles. The noodles come with pieces cucumbers, potatoes, tofu, dried shrimp, and cabbage. Sadly, the noodles come to the table at room temperature (intentionally), which is kind of weird and something I’ve never had before. The noodles and various accouterments are covered in a chili sauce, which gives it a nice little bite. Otherwise, it’s sort of a tomato-ish kind of sauce, maybe even a little bland. Good, but I think the temperature really threw me off base. We ended up taking half the noodles home (plus half the casserole – we ordered too much!), and I ate them for dinner the next night. Served hot, they tasted a lot better. The same, but just hot.
The drinks, briefly, were good. The Thai iced tea came unmixed, which is always fun. It had a nice balance of tea to milk, with a slight bit more milk, so it was sweeter, which is what I like. The ginger lemonade is quite literally that. Take a sip of a nice tangy lemonade and then a tiny bite of ginger (sort of like the pickled stuff you get next to your sushi at Japanese restaurants) and you’ve got the drink. The ginger wasn’t overwhelming, just a nice little twist.
The place is TINY. A few tables along each wall and tables in the middle, probably can’t seat more than 70 people in the joint. The walls are painted calming colors and decorated with, I presume, Burmese artifacts. Wood carvings, small statues, cloth tapestry type things, etc. Everything was very simple and elegant. It was authentic but not cheesy, cool but not hipster. I liked it a lot. But seriously, SO SMALL! Our table was a mere foot from the tables next to ours, so I got to know the couples next to us pretty well.
Overall: A nice place with amazing food. There’s a long wait to get it: long enough that you wouldn’t want to do it on a regular basis, but well worth it for special occasions. Did I mention the spectacular food – a cuisine you’ll be hard pressed to find elsewhere, even in the City! Not perfect, but certainly great. I’m definitely going back and trying the rest of the menu. Fast and friendly service once inside, and extra points for being across the street from Genki! (The perfect desert!!)
Rating: 9/10
choice chow 
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