How to eat like a Superstar!

Ever since I moved to San Francisco, I've been hearing about Burma Superstar. When you drive down Clement in the Inner Richmond, it doesn't look like anything special, but drive by it around dinner time any evening and you'll see the crowd waiting outside to get in. Before this experience, I'd never thought about Burma, or what they eat in there (sorry Burma). I had no idea what they're style of food was going to be like. When you think about the location of Burma, you start to get a better idea of what they're food is going to taste like. Burma (click the link, learn something!) shares borders with India, China, Laos and Thailand. All of these food cultures influence Burmese food, which combines their dishes and spices in unique ways.

I went with a couple girl friends a few Monday nights ago. Now, on a Monday, right before the holidays, we still had to wait almost an hour for a table. Tip: You can call ahead when en route and put your name on the list. The restaurant isn't very big, but it's nice that they keep the vibe they have going instead of expanding into some giant space. The dishes are pretty big sized, so keeping it family style will fill you up and let you try multiple things on the menu. We started with the salt and pepper calamari, which is mixed up with scallions and jalapeno peppers. The dipping sauce is a balanced combination of spicy and sweet. Next we got the rainbow salad, which was my favorite dish of the evening. It's been featured on the Food Network before and deserves all the hype. The salad is made from 22 ingredients and the server will mix all of the up in front of you. This may not be all 22, but the salad contains papaya, cabbage, cilantro, carrot, tomato, shrimp, onion, vermicelli noodles, potato, string beans, tofu, red chili flakes and garlic. It's topped off with a tamarind dressing. The chefs are actually cool enough to share out the recipe, so if you're a good cook, this may be a good way to impress guests. We also ordered the pumpkin shrimp stew, with shrimp, squash and ginger, and the Burmese style curry, which is pretty mild and comes with you choice of meat and potato. One of my other favorite things that we tried was the side of the coconut rice. The rice has been cooked in coconut juice and is topped with fried onion. I'm not a huge white rice fan but the flavors this rice soaked up are amazing. So if this place worth the hype, most definitely. The flavor combinations are like nothing else. Just make sure to call when you're on your way! They also opened a sister restaurant down the street, B Star, that has shorter wait times and is great for carryout.

Do you Shabu?

Until I moved to San Francisco, I'd never heard of shabu-shabu. Basically, it's the Japanese version of fondue, only more savory and not sweet. You cook vegetables and thinly sliced meat in a hot pot of boiling broth. Since we live next to Japantown, we see a lot of these restaurants around, but didn't try one until earlier this week. We actually went outside of Japantown to Inner Richmond, to try the new place, Shabu Pub. Shabu Pub (3809 Geary Blvd) has a fun ambiance, with lots of lanterns and bright colors. It gets a little warm inside, with a hot pot boiling at every table and at the bar. The first issue was apparent when we first came in, that they were severely understaffed. When we got seated at the bar, it turned out our server didn't really speak English. I get it, it's a Japanese authentic restaurant, but we had no idea what we were doing to see just had to peak around and try and figure out what other people were doing. We both got the combo meat plates, with slices of lamb, ribeye beef and short rib. Each meat plate comes with a large bowl of vegetables and noodles, which are also Japanese so I'm not exactly sure what some of the root veggies were. You also get to choose a flavor of broth, so we got a combination of spicy miso and Mongolian style. After asking the people sitting next to us, we found out that because the meat is so thinly sliced than you only have to have it in the pot for 10 seconds, or until it is not longer red. After that, it was a pretty fun experience (I mean, it's fun-due really). It's definitely messy to eat and not first date material. There's sesame and soy dipping sauces. I read that shabu-shabu should be served with a bowl of white rice, but they don't bring you one unless you ask for it. The meal ends with a choice of either green tea or chocolate ice cream. I wouldn't recommend getting a drink there, as I ordered a glass of brut and it didn't come until I had already started eating and was served in a soda glass over ice. Shabu-shabu was a fun experience, but I'm not sure if we'll do it again any time soon.