As always, Brendan did his research before we left for London, and found a Burmese restaurant on Edgware Road, not far from our hotel. Mandalay doesn't look like much - a small, fairly basic place, but the food was very good. We had never eaten Burmese food before - according to their website, it's a mix between Indian, Chinese & Thai. I'm not sure I detected an influence from any of these cuisines - it was quite unique, in my experience anyway.
We had fritters for starters - I had shrimp + bean sprouts, Brendan had shrimp + vegetables. The batter was nice and light (it's made from rice flour, wheat flour and gram flour) but it was quite filling. I think next time I would try a salad or a soup - I find that there is a sameness to food fried in batter. Our main courses were much more distinctive in flavour. I had a stir fry with shrimp and ginger, and I think Brendan had a chilli chicken. Both really nice and nothing like anything we'd eaten before. We were full after that, so we skipped dessert.
The place is small and looks really cheap, but it was clean (except, apparently the yard you have to cross to get to the bathrooms - it was full of builders' rubble and rubbish bags. The bathrooms themselves were clean). There was a nice buzz around the place - most tables were occupied by the time we left, mostly by British and European customers, and a few Asians.
Next time we're in London, I wouldn't mind trying out a few other dishes on their menu.
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