At the start of this month, we ventured out to try a newly opened Burmese restaurant on Sunset in Silver Lake—Daw Yee Myanmar, an import from the San Gabriel Valley touted by Eater LA as “one of SGV’s best Burmese restaurants.”
We’d never had true Burmese cuisine, but there was a joint that opened up in DC right after we moved away from that fine city years back and we’d always been curious. Myanmar’s geography means that it borrows from Chinese, Indian, and Thai cooking + cultures, so how could some combination of all of those cuisines not rule?
We reached out to the cafe via Facebook to see how vegan-friendly they might be and they got back to us right away, explaining that many items were vegan as were and more could easily be made vegan.
When we visited (and as of writing, seemingly), the cafe was still fine-tuning the permanent menu, calling it a soft opening still, so we’re not clear on what may or may not be long-term dishes, but most of what we got seems pretty mainstay.
A must are the Garlic Noodles (pictured above), which are easily made vegan and feature wheat noodles tossed in garlic oil with chickpea ‘tofu,’ which seems to be polenta-like (soy-free) tofu rods. If you’re into spice (and additional awesomeness), ask for their housemade chili sauce, which is superb and goes very well with the noodles.
Then the Tea Leaf Salad, which is like nothing we’ve had before and highly craveable (and vegan as-is). It features truly distinctive and defining fermented tea leaves, shredded cabbage, steamed corn, diced tomatoes, crunchy fried lentils, fried butter bean, fried garlic, roasted peanuts, and toasted sesame. The taste and texture of this dish make it another we’d highly recommend getting.
The Burmese Vegetable Curry is good and vegan as-is, but basically a fairly tame, well-spiced stew—nothing too spicy—with okra, potatoes, lentils, daikon, and curry leaves. And the chickpea ‘tofu’ + Burmese samosas filled with onions and masala potatoes are totally solid openers if you’re looking for them.
Daw Yee—at 2831 Sunset in Silver Lake—is open 5-11PM Monday through Friday, closed Tuesdays, open 11AM-11PM Saturday, and 11AM-10PM Sunday. And, most importantly, they have cute neon paper animal heads on the wall. As Eater points out, no liquor license, but next door at Same Same street thai (also vegan-friendly), they’ve got a solid beer + wine list.
Daw Yee Myanmar facade photo via Eater.
