Take a short walk west of Maha Bandula Park along Merchant Road (Konthe-lan in Myanmar dialect), and you’ll find Burma Bistro, an up-market eatery that specialises in Indian, Burmese and other popular South East Asian cuisine.
Having enjoyed a leisurely Sunday lunch there over the weekend, here’s our thoughts summed up using images and a few words.
The Burma Bistro sign hangs over a frequently bustling section of Merchant Street – blink and you’ll miss it, which is surprising really given the restaurant’s size.
The stairs leading up to Burma Bistro is very unassuming and a little bit reminiscent of the old Rangoon Tea House entrance.
In stark contrast to the surrounding streets, the interior of Burma Bistro is clean, polished and full of age-old charm.
Similar to the current Rangoon Tea House, Burma Bistro is set over two floors; most people are likely to default to the first floor but we’d urge you to take a wonder upstairs before deciding on where to sit.
On the second floor you’ll find ample seating and a vintage style island bar. Slightly more private “VIP” style booths can also be found to the back.
The second floor also opens up onto a grand pillared balcony, which will be ideal for anyone looking to carry out a bit of people spotting whilst they dine.
Burma Bistro have worked hard to conserve as much of the building’s colonial charm as possible. This images of the cracks and creeping vines is testament to that.
The owners of Burma Bistro have clearly put a lot of thought into getting the small details right – from the fresh flowers that decorate the tables to the antiques to the framed photography, these have all helped to make the restaurant feel incredibly homely.
Burma Bistro has a very impressive drinks menu. Although we opted to drink no alcohol, there’s an impressive selection of beer, wine, champagne and cocktails to choose from – they even have a walk in wooden wine cellar at the top of the stairs.
The menu has plenty to choose from and there’s no shortage of vegetarian options – in this photo you can see the roti dipper dish with a vegetable curry and refreshing raita dip.
All of the dishes we were served were full of colour and presented to a very high standard.
Burma Bistro’s signature rice in bamboo dish – for us, this is one of the restaurant’s must eat dishes.
17th Street Special – a mixture of samosas, noodles, vegetable and chilli sauce. Overall, this was our favourite out of the dishes we sampled.
Looking to make a booking for a larger group? Burma Bistro has you covered. Thanks to the restaurant’s abundance of space, a meal here can be as intimate or as lively as you’d like.
Before eating at Burma Bistro, we read a couple of reviews knocking the restaurant’s quality of food and service, with the Myanmar Times even going so far as to say the latter was “atrocious”. Seeing as the review in question was written a few weeks ago and the restaurant’s still in the early stages of opening up, we think that judgement was overly harsh and if anything, a bit premature. Going off our own experience, the staff were well-presented, polite, their level of English was excellent, and the service was remarkably efficient. As the team gels and the processes required to run such a large establishment become better oiled, this is only going to improve.
The food was also a lot better than we were led to believe, easily rivalling the likes of other popular, centrally located restaurants such as Rangoon Teahouse and Sofaer & Co. Burma Bistro however wins hands down when it comes to price – the dishes photographed above, along with one fresh coconut and a large lime juice only set us back MMK28,000 (approximately USD20). When you consider that acquiring a building such as this wouldn’t have been cheap, not to mention the amount they would have spent on interior design, this really does represent incredible value for money and we only hope the prices will remain competitive without Burma Bistro having to compromise on quality.
If you’re looking for a unique place to dine that can easily be incorporated into a downtown walking tour, Burma Bistro comes highly recommended. We ate here for lunch, but a reservation is likely to suit anytime of day.
Please note: Tour Mandalay have no affiliation with Burma Bistro and this visit was carried out completely undercover.
Address: Merchant Road (Konthe-lan), in-between Shwe Bon Thar Road and 29th Street
Tel: +95 (0) 9401 183 838
Web: www.theburmabistro.com
