An Old Favorite: Cafe Mingala, New York, NY

Many moons ago, before I even was a Berger, JB took me to a tiny, non-descript Burmese restaurant on the Upper East Side called Cafe Mingala. At that time, I had never had Burmese before, and I was blown away.  If you were to combine all of the best things about Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese food, you'd get Burmese.  When we lived in the city, we were addicted, and would either go or order from here at least once a week. 

I've been in serious Burmese withdrawal for years.  There are days that I dream of their string bean salad.  And today, we happened to be in the neighborhood and we stopped by for a trip down our culinary memory lane.  We didn't have much time, so we just ordered two dishes:

- Peah Thee Thoke, the aforementioned string bean salad.  It's a cold salad of string beans, peanuts and crispy onions with some lettuce, carrots, and unbelievable (but unknown) dressing.   We gobbled it up.  If anyone is on their way from the city to the East End, please bring some for me!
-  Nungi Kyaw, a hot rice noodle dish in a garlic scallion sauce that we got with tofu and vegetables. We, or really, I picked this one because I have a current obsession with tofu.  Trust me, I am a serious meat eater, (bacon, anyone?),  but when I saw tofu, I had to have it.  And I was happy with my choice, although I could have used more tofu. 

Mingala is one of the places where you really should just order by number, because you have no idea how to pronounce anything, but if you're feeling daring, feel free to ask for them by name.

Like I said, this is a sliver of a restaurant, its definitely not the place for a happening Saturday night. I think their most popular drink is water and trust me its the perfect match for the string bean salad. 

Until our next Berger,
KLB

Cafe Mingala

393 2nd Ave, New York NY 10021  (Btwn 72nd & 73rd St)

212.744.8008

Too old school for a website, but you can find their menu at menupages.com