Burma/Myanmar - Mandalay, W2

Restaurant:  Mandalay

Location:  444 Edgware Road, London, W2 1EG

Date of visit:  7 June 2015

Time of visit:  7pm

The concept of an A-to-Z of London restaurants project based on countries is a simple one at first. The project has been following Wikipedia's list of sovereign states and has been pretty straight forward so far. Until now. The next country on the list was Burma. However, the UN and much of the international community recognises the country as "Myanmar". The UK government don't recognise the legitimacy of the regime that changed the name and therefore continues to use Burma. The media industry flip flop between the two.

What to do? I decided to do the country - whatever you want to call it - now rather than when I get to the countries beginning with "M". The biggest reason is that my list has nothing for Myanmar. I didn't want to risk not doing the country at all.

London has one real Burmese restaurant, which is fairly well known for being inexpensive and very accessible. Elle and I made a day of it and walked the four miles from our home to the restaurant, making some "refreshment" stops on the way.

We arrived at 7pm. The restaurant was fairly quiet when we walked in, but in the following fifteen minutes it really started to fill. Not difficult to do, as the restaurant was quite small.

In fact, whilst looking at the menu and deciding on our choices, a rather large group arrived without a reservation. We were politely asked if we would move to a small table by the window so they could move another two tables together to accommodate them. We didn't have an issue with this at all, but we did have to move from a comfortable position inside the restaurant to a table right beside the large window looking onto the street (and the street looking on to us!).

I should reiterate again how polite the service was though. It was a pleasure to be served by the staff there.

The menu didn't look to be quite as extensive as the one on the website. It also seemed to be a little pricier, which leads me to assume the website may be somewhat outdated. It's a fantastic menu nonetheless, with a large selection of soups and starters (including samosas and fritters), salads, various meat dishes and sundries.

The menu reads very much like an Indian or Chinese menu, which is somewhat true of some Burmese cuisine in general. However, I think it's fair to say that even if the description of a meal sounds familiar, the result will be quite different to what you would expect.

I am a fan of soup, so I had to go for one of those on the menu. I opted for the tantalising sounding chicken, shrimp and lime soup to start. Elle ordered the chicken and vegetable fritter, which I assumed would be like some kind of bhaji. For main I went for the chicken and lemongrass with lentil rice. This was a really unusual choice for me as I would almost always be drawn to the spiciest dish on the menu! Elle, on the other hand, picked the chilli chicken with coconut rice.

While we waited, we took in the surroundings. One of the things that really stood out for me was the lack of music in the restaurant. It struck me as really unusual. The restaurant itself has a slightly informal cafe feel, but is comfortable. Interestingly, the toilet for the restaurant is outside the back of the building, and is locked with a passcode (which you get from the door frame inside the restaurant!).

The drinks came shortly after we ordered. I had a beer. The beer was simply listed on the menu as "beer". On asking, we discovered they stocked Tsingtao and Singha beers. Similarly, the wine by the glass selection was signified by "Glass of wine" on the menu. No suggestion as to the size of the glass (it was served in a 125ml glass in the end, but filled beyond this measurement line). The wine wasn't really of a great quality, but this wasn't really an issue.

The starters came in no time. Elle's fritters - two of - appeared as deep fried bhaji-like creations. Battered strands of onion, sweet potato (or carrott), courgette and the odd chunk of chicken. It was served with three generous pots of soy, tamarind and sweet chilli sauces. The fritters were nice and crisp, with good chunks of chicken. The batter was quite light, and overall didn't seem too greasy at all. The tamarind dip was a little bland. Soy sauce was soy sauce. And the sweet chilli sauce had a real kick to it.

As did my soup. It was fantastic - bursting with flavour. The lime flavour cut through really well but was in no way overpowering. It was really refreshingwith  a small amount of chicken and shrimp (I counted three of the latter) with a handful of beansprouts and ample coriander. I'm not a huge fan of coriander, but it was a perfect addition to the soup. It worked incredibly well.

The mains came in good time too. The first impression was that the portions seemed fairly small. As time went on this was proven to be a non-issue as the portions were actually incredibly filling. My chicken and lemongrass was lovely. Not spicy by any means, but full of flavour. The lemongrass was again was everpresent, but not overpowering. The chicken was presented in small bitesized chunks with a nice thick sauce. The lentil rice was particularly enjoyable. It appeared that the lentils had been softened then almost mashed into the rice.

Elle's chilli chicken had a lovely rich sauce with a real kick, and again small bitesized pieces of chicken. The coconut rice was lovely - the flavour was much stronger with this portion of rice, but when that flavour is coconut this is no bad thing! It complemented the spiciness of the main very nicely.

Overall this was a really enjoyable visit. The service was fantastic, and the quality of the food was very high. I came away feeling we had eaten something fairly familiar, but with a Burmese twist. And having not spent very much money.