Return to Yoma Myanmar

[Original visit was last month]

After Palm Sunday mass at a church in Alhambra, we headed over to Yoma Myanmar in Monterey Park for some Burmese food...

Here's my original post on Yoma two months ago...

The last time we went, it was dinner time. It wasn't too crowded when we got there around 12:30 pm.

I'd been thinking about, no, make that DREAMING about the Burmese Tea Leaf Salad...

Here's that black velveteen banner that I mentioned last time (which was also referenced by a yelper about the "fine ladies" of Myanmar wall hanging)...I had to wait til the lady who was sitting next to it bent down so I wouldn't get her in the shot!

The salad offerings on their menu...Look at the name of that one, "Hydrocotileasistica". I just tried looking it up on wikepedia. Apparently, it should be spelled as "Hydrocotil Asiatica". The leaves are used as a leafy green in India, as a medicinal herb in Asia and Africa. It is considered quite nutritious. We'll have to try that next time...

My Thai iced tea...

This is what we came for, the Mohinga, which is the national dish of Burma (now called Myanmar). It is traditionally eaten during breakfast. 

According to the wikipedia entry on Mohinga:

"The main ingredients of mohinga are chickpea flour and/or crushed toasted rice, garlic, onions, lemongrass, banana tree stem, ginger, fish paste, fish sauce and catfish in a rich broth cooked and kept on the boil in a cauldron. It is served with rice vermicelli, dressed and garnished with fish sauce, a squeeze of lime, crispfried onions, coriander, spring onions, crushed dried chilli and, as optional extras, crispy fried fritters such as split chickpeas (pè gyan gyaw), urad dal (baya gyaw) or gourd (bu gyaw) as well as boiled egg and fried fish cake (nga hpè gyaw)."

The Mohinga had really good flavor. The broth itself looked to be quite spicy, but it wasn't. There were yellow beans (to be seen later in the fried rice dish) and sliced fish cake. I thought that there would be actual chunks or bits of real fish but it was fish cake which has a kind of spongy consistency. Hidden were the noodles and a sliced boiled egg.

This portion could have fed 3-4 people as an appetizer. Bert and I had a really light breakfast so we could have a more substantial lunch. There were also crunchy bits of "something" in the soup. Our server couldn't explain what it was in English to me. She didn't really understand what I was asking, so I gave up. The woman who helped us before and explained the dishes and ingredients wasn't working there that day. I suspect the crunchy bits were probably beans.

Here is that Tea Leaf Salad we loved so much. It had so much layers of flavor andwonderful texture. The tea leaves are fermented and served with chopped tomatoes, peanuts, broad beans, thinly sliced cabbage, and some other type of bean (very small, kind of like a lentil, but crunchy). The dressing was lemon juice (which was also a "condiment" on the table").  The salad was sweet, sour, salty, earthy, and crunchy all at once.

In addition to the Mohinga (spelled as "Mont Hinn Ga"), here were the other items on the breakfast menu:

This was the Steam Bean Fried Rice. The beans are "Vatana" beans which are small and yellow. The rice was served with a fried egg on top and crispy fried shallots. We loved this the first time so we got it again.

The dishes came served with a relish of sliced cabbage and red onion which we topped off with hot sauce.

Specials sign:

The old fashioned tile in their bathroom...

The condiments included fish sauce (in the soy sauce bottle) and lemon juice...

It was a great revisit to a cuisine we rarely see in San Diego...

Next up...(and out of order), Hwa Ro Korean BBQ and some random travel pix. After lunch, we headed down to Aliso Viejo to pick up TC at her cousins' house.