Philadelphia’s Only Burmese Restaurant


Rick Nichols visits the family-run Rangoon , Philadelphia’s only Burmese restaurant and finds that the news of protests from back home weigh heavily.

For close to 15 years, Rangoon has been a fixture on north Ninth Street, the easterly flank of Chinatown, and while Vietnamese places have multiplied, and Thai, and even Malaysian – there are two now – it has remained a singular, well-run, and proudly distinctive presence.

As we commiserate, dish after dish emerges from the kitchen – creamy crabmeat dumplings fried in the shape of starbursts, and stretchy, pan-fried “thousand layer bread” (reminiscent of Penang’s roti canai paper-thin pancakes) that you dip in spicy potato curry sauce, or if you prefer, a yellowish vatana dip, fashioned from the soaked, and then steamed, vatana bean, which is along the lines of a slightly firmer chickpea.

Road from Mandalay [Philadelphia Inquirer]