Oakland Restaurant Challenge: Burma-Tokyo

Yesterday was a crappy day. It was beautiful outside, and not really all that muggy, but it was full of crappy appointments, and crappy news, and crappy phone calls, and then when I went to the mall to try to spend money to make myself feel better, crappy clothes. I was actually waiting anxiously for 7pm so I could put Delilah on the radio and listen to some sad stories to make myself feel better about things.

But thankfully, my husband decided we had to break the crappy cycle and get out and do something. That something happened to be the next restaurant on the Oakland circuit.

And that next restaurant wound up being Burma-Tokyo, a little spot on Atwood Street that you would almost miss if you weren’t looking for it.

And let me tell you: missing Burma-Tokyo would be a real shame.

First of all, it’s super cheap. We got two entrees, a soup, an appetizer, and a green tea for around $25. And it wasn’t crowded when we went (on a Monday night), so we had the undivided attention of our server, which was excellent. (I do hope there are nights that it IS super crowded, because I will feel a true sense of sadness were this restaurant to go out of business. Maybe once school is in session, things pick up.)

The decor is very no-nonsense in some ways, with tables and chairs that would fit in with a cafeteria setting, but the artwork adds a really nice touch to the place. This is the window by our table.

The menu has a variety of different types of cuisine, which is another perk. You can get sushi (which we didn’t, despite my love affair with sushi, because we wanted to try something *different*), and you can get all sorts of other Asian specialties, all cooked in the Burmese style.

Oh. And you can get miso soup. Did I mention, ever, in this blog, that I kind of like miso soup?

Well I absolutely do, and I don’t know if you can tell, but that’s pretty much the biggest bowl of miso soup that I’ve ever seen. And tasted. And totally didn’t share with my husband.

(I can’t help it – the soup was delicious! In case you don’t remember the Great Beaver County Green Onion ChiChis Scare of 2003, some people got bad green onions and got hepatitis A, and Pittsburgh has since made green onions quite taboo in restaurants. Guess what? There are still fantastic places in Pittsburgh to get green onions in your food, where they belong! Burma-Tokyo is one of them, and I commend them for it! 🙂

We also got the tempura shrimp appetizer, which was very good. It was lightly breaded and the sweetness of the breading accompanied the saltiness of the soy sauce perfectly.

For entrees, Michael got the Laos peppermint leaf with pork. This was just wonderful. It’s real peppermint leaf, not a peppermint flavoring like in candy or gum. It reminded me of summer camp at Old Economy when we would be allowed to sample the plants in the herb garden. It was that fresh, like you just picked peppermint in the yard. The pork was a little spicy, and the veggies were abundant. Yum!

I got the Nepal platter, which was a stew-like dish with potato, chicken, and mushroom, served with roti bread and two small samosas. This was amazing! The flavors reminded me so much of the dinners I used to order at this little Tibetan restaurant in Davis Square when I lived in Cambridge. Who knew that on a day when I had felt so much like running away, I would unknowingly order a food that brought back so many good memories from the place I’m always daydreaming of running away to?

The roti bread was better at Burma-Tokyo than the bread they serve at the place in Davis Square (at least I think it was Davis Square, I can’t remember the name of the place, and I don’t know if, 6 years later, it’s even there, but I now vow to find it when we return to the 02138 next!), and it was sweet and light. The samosas were similar to the samosas we had at Abay, not as fried or crunchy as traditional Indian samosas. And the flavors of the soup were amazing. Best of all, a little bit of this went a long way, so I have leftovers for another meal!

Another cute charm about Burma-Tokyo was the glass of hot green tea that I ordered (and Michael shared with me). Kind of neat to be served Asian cuisine and have chopsticks mixed with silverware, but to drink your green tea out of a Coca Cola glass!

We really recommend checking this place out. They don’t have a website as far as I can tell, but you can look at their Yelp page or visit them until 9:30pm each evening. They are located on Atwood Street, just before the intersection at Louisa as you move into the main part of Oakland. You will not be disappointed!