Cookaholics Bulletin Board

On, the other hand, sometimes you can judge.

When I was in D.C., some of the local geeks decided to take me to a Burmese restaurant. They took me to D.C. Chinatown, and up a narrow staircase to an upstairs flat which had been indifferently converted into a restaurant, and not cleaned since the conversion.

You know what? It was awful, and possibly toxic. I've had better Asian food from the concession at a bus depot in Manchester.

Ah, but the ambiance of the renovated opium den! I have not been to Burma or even Thailand, but I was watching some food show where an old food critic of the NY Times that lived in Bangkok was showing around a young TV host. He noted the very best Thai restaurants were not the nice showy ones but rather looked like hole-in-the-wall establishments. Their attention was solely on the food and not a bit on the ambiance. Here in the Philippines, if the place looks bad, the food usually is too. On the other hand, if the place looks good, that often only has a haphazard relationship to the quality of their menu.

Steve,

Yeah. I put in my Yelp review "This place is probably serving authentic Burmese food, if by "authentic" you mean "what the Burmese are currently eating under martial law and embargoes"".

FWIW, both of the best Thai restaurants in San Francisco (Marnee, Thep Phenom) are quite nicely done up. On the other hand, the best pupuseria is a kiosk in a failing minimall in the Mission.