Burma Love

Prior to 1992, the San Francisco Bay Area did not have much Burmese cuisine awareness.  But that all changed when Burma Superstar opened in the Richmond, founded by a recent transplant from Burma who lamented the lack of Burmese food, and became "famous" for their tea leaf salad.  It soon won national awards. I remember hearing about it way back when I first moved to the area, and remember visiting at some point during my first year in the city to try that salad.  My memory is mostly that it was on the far other side of the city, didn't take reservations and had a long wait, and the food was totally unfamiliar to me.  I don't recall if I liked it or not.  By 2014 they had opened a spin-off, Burma Love, in the Mission, far more accessible to most, and the fame spread further.  And then in 2019 another, Burma Love downtown.  There is a 4th location coming soon as well.

In 2016, Burma Superstar/Burma Love products became even more accessible, when they opened a retail line.  They won more awards, now for their pantry items, such as the dressing.  They also sell their own blend of fish sauce, housemade fried garlic chips, other tea leaf products (such as aioli), a slew of grab-n-go premade salads, noodles, and wraps, plus meal kits.  You can now find the retail products all over the area - from grocery stores to Good Eggs to local cafes.  Or, where I discovered them, at the San Francisco International Airport, at Napa Farms Market (which I've reviewed before, covering their own items) and Green Beans coffee shop.

During my last few trips through SFO, I've grab a few of the grab-n-goes, and gotten a chance to at least have something a bit different in the airport.

Golden Ginger Salad.

"A refreshing salad of green leaf lettuce, matchstick carrots, shredded purple cabbage and our fragrant organic pickled ginger dressing deliver the flavors of Burmese ginger salad. This salad is vegan, gluten-free, and dairy-free."

The first item I tried from Burma Love was the golden ginger salad.  I had just come off an international flight and my body was craving something healthy and refreshing, so when I saw this at the Green Beans coffee shop, it looked totally appropriate.

The salad was decent.  The base a touch boring, just green leaf lettuce, shredded carrots and cabbage, but all fresh enough.  The lemon I think was nice in theory, but I didn't find it did much, even when I tried to squeeze out the juice to get a bit more pop and acid in the salad.  It just wasn't actually juicy.  The toppings though are what made the salad interesting.  

The "dressing" was basically a slightly sweet pickled ginger, chopped up more than you'd see for sushi ginger.  I quite liked it, but, it wasn't really a dressing, and I found myself wanting a bit more moisture for the salad, something to really dress it, given all the leafy greens.

The "crunchy mix" was fantastic - great flavors and textures.  It was a mix of roasted sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, peanuts, split peas, garlic, and more.  Honestly, I would like to just buy a package of this to sprinkle on just about anything (which, it turns out, must not be a unique ask - they sell it as a standalone item).

And finally, the small little container that was ... chickpea powder.  I'm still not sure how I felt about this.  It mostly just was an odd, dry element.  The salad already didn't quite have a dressing, and then adding powder to it made it eat ... interestingly.   Dry.  I also didn't particularly care for the taste of it.

So overall, it was good - average vegetable base, interesting toppings.  I really did like the crunchy mix.  It was not really worth the high airport price tag though.

*** overall, **** for the crispy stuff.

Fermented Tea Leaf Salad.

"Take our iconic Tea Leaf Salad with you on the go! Includes our award winning Vegan Dressing, our Burmese Crunchy Mix, fresh plum tomatoes, crisp romaine lettuce and a slice of lemon to flavor to taste. This salad is vegan, gluten-free and dairy-free."

The next time I was flying through SFO and landed in the same state of mind really needing vegetables, I decided to try the other Burma Love salad, this time, their signature fermented tea leaf salad.  It too had a fairly boring base, just romaine and a few plum tomatoes, plus another lemon slice.  Fresh enough, but, boring.

But it had a real dressing, their famous fermented tea leaf dressing, which, yes, has tea leaves along with garlic, green jalapeño, lime juice, ginger, dried mushrooms, dried tomato, really, an interesting batch of flavors together.  This was my first time having a tea leaf salad that I remember (although I'm pretty sure I tried it back in 2005 at the restaurant), and when I tasted it, I was rather surprised.  It tasted, well, like tea leaves, actually.  Basically, think tea leaves in place of parsley in a chimichurri.  It was a fascinating flavor, lightly bitter, and just not what I ever expect with salad.

Oh, and, um, I might have also picked this because it had an even bigger container of the crunchy mix with it than the previous salad, the same blend.  I again loved that stuff.  Next time, I'm just getting a bag o crunchy mix!

Overall, a fine salad - again pretty average base, but interesting toppings.  I wouldn't get it again as I just don't see myself ever wanting tea leaf dressing, but, I was glad to try it.  ***.

Burmese Samusa Wrap.

"A hearty spinach wrap featuring Burmese curried potatoes and peas and crunchy fresh veggies."

Deciding to branch out from the salads, next I tried the single sandwich-like item that Burma Love produces, a samusa wrap.  It was a basic spinach wrap, with samusa-like filling (e.g. potatoes, peas, carrots, onions with curry seasoning), plus crispy shredded cabbage/carrots, and their tea leaf dressing turned into aioli (or so they said, I never found that).  On the side was a chili dipping sauce, that unfortunately had opened up in my container, and got all over everything, making it a bit soggy.

So ... the wrap was soggy both from the spilled sauce, and just from the way it was packaged and condensation.  The spinach wrap was actually fine, but, soggy wrap isn't particularly appealing.  I thought it might be fine if I toasted it, or at least extracted the samusa bits and warmed them up in the toaster oven to use some way, but I never got that far.  I took a few bites of the fillings and was really, really, really put off by the taste.  The cabbage/carrots tasted fermented, not in a nicely pickled way, but in a "this food as gone bad" way.  The taste was foul.  And the cooked potato/pea/carrot/etc mix also tasted a bit off, but really, there just wasn't much of this, and it was just a little cold small diced potato/peas/carrots, basically some mush, along with all the very fermented tasting "crunchy fresh veggie".  I honestly do think that perhaps this had gone bad, and that might explain why it was so moist too?  It was dated with a "Eat by" date of the day I got it.

The only redeeming thing about this was the sauce.  That chili dipping sauce was quite good, sweet and lightly spicy, and I suspect would be necessary to give this thing any flavor if I had been willing to risk eating it, but, I ended up extracting a little of the non-soggy wrap, dunking it in the sauce, and ditching the rest.  This really was no good.

*.