Burmese Food

We took a quick trip to Tulsa to introduce our daughter to marine life at the Oklahoma Aquarium. In planning this trip (and realizing I hadn't posted on here in ages, we looked for a unique restaurant in the area. We found KAI Burmese Restaurant that serves food from Myanmar (formerly Burma) in Southeast Asia. Much of it is influenced by the surrounding cultures (China, India, Thailand, etc.).

We ordered a lot of food, wanting to get a good feel for the type of cuisine.

Appetizers:

Tea leaf salad - super good, both adults liked it and the tomatoes were a thumbs up for the preschooler. Pickled or marinated tea leaves, shredded cabbage, sliced tomatoes, peanuts, crunchy soy nuts, sesame seeds, a bit of spice, and a well-seasoned dressing.

I promise, under all the crunchy stuff there really are veggies

Yellow something, orange something, and black something....vegetables, apparently

 Tempura vegetables - the sauce was really tasty according to the husband, all vegetables were unrecognizable, but the best was the rectangular one.

Husband's favorite part of the meal. It's like creamy soy sauce, he says

Entrees:
Kyi Oo - at first it looked like a Burmese version of pho (see previous entry on pho), and that may be what it is. However, it tasted nothing like pho. The broth tasted almost like a watered down and salt-free egg drop soup. There was peppered chicken, halved meatballs, offal, a medium-boiled egg, greens, and heaps of very, very thin rice noodles in the soup. Chili oil was served on the side. We both preferred this one, mostly due to the choice of spice level.

Kyi Oo

Pho, for reference

Shan noodles: spicy spaghetti-like rice noodles with curry chicken and steamed/boiled/pickled vegetables. On the side was slightly peppered clear soup with a bit of spring onion. We gave that to our daughter because she loves broth-y type soups and it was literally all she asked for. The noodles were too spicy for us though. The curry chicken was really good, and the vegetables were a good a break from the spice.

Beware the spice - Husband tolerates Asian spice better and I tolerate Mexican and African spice better

Pretty much the only thing our daughter ate, but she basically finished it. She's a fiend for soup.

Our visit was cut a little short due to our daughter having a tantrum. I probably could have spent another half hour there if not for the tantrum and lack of water refills.

Overall: if we can find a Whole30 compliant version of the tea leaf salad we might try to make that during the next month as we embark on Whole30. Also, noodle soup is generally good regardless from which country it originates.