During my late November stay in Irvine, I had really wanted to return to Cafe Hiro. But not knowing what time I'd be cut loose, I didn't want to make reservations and not keep them. So, I did return to Café Hiro, but the place was packed. Luckily, I had a "plan B". I'd noticed a restaurant when I drove back to my hotel on Katella.
It had been a while since I'd had Burmese food. So this ended up being my back-up. The place was surprisingly empty on a Saturday night.
The Servers were very friendly and gracious.
I ordered a Myanmar Lager while I perused the menu. Slightly malty. fairly light overall.
I had one item already in mind and searched for another. Because of the hours of work and my leaving straight from the client the next morning, leftover didn't make sense.
But there was no denying the fact that I needed to order the Tea Leaf Salad ($11). I love the fermented bitterness of "laphet", tea leaves that have been fermented.
In terms of being nice and refreshing, this salad was very good. In terms of having the pleasantly bitter-tart-fermented flavor of laphet, this fell a bit short for me. The dressing had a good amount of lime in it and was on the sweeter side for my taste. Loved the seeds and peanuts. Nice salad overall, but not quite what I want in my laphet thoke.
For my main; I chose the Sour Leaf (chimbaung - Hibiscus Leaf/Roselle) Shrimp ($13), in spite of the rather humorous description on the menu.
A very pleasant, if not especially memorable dish. I expected a bit more spicy heat, sour, pungency, and saltiness. This was quite mild. There was an abundance of shrimp that tasted a bit muddy side, but were nicely cooked. My favorite item in the dish was the okra, slightly crunchy with a pleasant gooey-slimy finish. Think of this as a fairly mild, though oily curry, and you'd be right.
This was a pleasant meal and I'd think about visiting again one of these days. Nice service and I thought things were well priced. Not very busy on a Saturday night though.
Irrawaddy Taste of Burma
7076 Katella Ave
Stanton, CA 90680
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