Mandalay Restaurant
Mandalay opened on California Street in 1984. Its tea leaf salad goes out with no lettuce and no cabbage in it. Staff mix it at your table. The James Beard Foundation gave the room an America's Classics award in 2024. That citation goes to restaurants it calls locally owned, timeless and true to their communities.
Why go
Peanuts, toasted lentils, sesame seeds and fried garlic chips carry the crunch. Leaving the greens out is what lets them. The fermented leaves stay loud behind them. Cesar Hernandez and MacKenzie Chung Fegan are the San Francisco Chronicle's two restaurant critics. They put this version closer to Myanmar than to anything else in the Bay Area, and note that cabbage is common there too.4
Hernandez wrote in 2023 that Mandalay was the Bay Area's first Burmese restaurant, and is now its oldest.5 The James Beard Foundation says something different. Announcing the award, it called the room the oldest Burmese kitchen still open in San Francisco, and said it was not the first.1 Both are on the record. I am not going to pick one.
Mandalay's balada is a flaky flatbread you pull into layers, with curry to dip. The mango chicken arrives loud with onions and jalapenos. Paolo Bicchieri, writing Eater SF's Richmond map, points at the Rangoon spicy fish among the specials.7
Order this / avoid
- Order: the tea leaf salad, and let them mix it.
- Order: the balada with a curry, and the mango chicken.
- Order: the sour samusa soup, which the Foundation singled out.
- Avoid: arriving at peak weekend dinner without a plan. Julia Chen of The Infatuation sends you two blocks over to Burma Superstar when the wait beats you.11
What locals & experts say
- The James Beard Foundation, in its 2024 America's Classics announcement:
San Francisco is one of the greatest Burmese restaurant cities in America. But of them all, Mandalay might be the best of the bunch.
1 - Julia Chen, The Infatuation, August 2024:
Mandalay serves the best Burmese food in the city.
2 - Dianne de Guzman, Eater SF, on its 38 Essential Restaurants map: it
makes the least compromises to accommodate Western palates, which in general means bigger, punchier flavors.
6
Good to know
- Closed: Tuesday. Lunch runs Friday through Sunday.
- Getting in: book. Weekend dinner packs out.
- Where: 4348 California Street, in the Inner Richmond.
Verdict
must-visit — Give it a whole evening. This is the room in the Richmond I would cross the city for.