"Burmese Feast" at Golden Triangle

Earlier in the year, I set up a sampler dinner at Golden Triangle for my dining group, where we got to experience 14 different Burmese dishes. Wow, what an evening of culinary delight.

Out of the 14 dishes, I've had six of them before and of course, that includes Golden Triangle's signature dish, their Ginger Salad. For those of you who have never had this salad before, believe me, it's worth the drive to Whittier just to try it.

The Ginger Salad consists of shredded ginger tossed with coconut, garlic, yellow peas, ground peanuts and sesame seeds with lemon sauce. The textures, the crunch and the flavors are amazing. You get a little sweet, a little tart, a little nutty, a little spicy in every single bite and you'd think that all those flavors would clash, but I kid you not, they harmonize very well on the palate.

Other dishes that I've enjoyed before include the Dai Kon Vegetable Sour Soup, which is very similar to Sinigang, a tamarind-based sour Filipino soup as well as the Burmese Dun Bauk Htamin, which is baked rice with herbs and chicken. This baked rice is actually drier than you'd expect, but I kind of liked the harder texture of the rice as well as the curry flavoring of the dish.

Of the 8 dishes that I've never tried before, three of them really stood out for me. One was the Tofu Salad. On the menu, it looks unassuming and there's not much of a description to go along with it, but let me tell you, that Tofu Salad was out of this world.

The great thing about the tofu in the salad is that it's housemade. You won't believe how creamy and silky that tofu was and again just like the Ginger Salad; there were a lot of great textures to this Salad. Along with the creamy tofu, you get the crisp cabbage as well as crunchy deep fried onions. I honestly think that if all I had for my meal was the Ginger Salad and the Tofu Salad, I would have been perfectly happy.

The second item that blew my socks off was Burmese Shrimp, which was shrimp sautéed with tomatoes, onions and a pretty spicy sauce. The sweetness of the shrimp really mixed well with the tomato's acidity and that sauce was amazing. Lots of flavor layers and it had a really good kick to it.

Another new favorite was the Shue Gi Mok, which was a very interesting dessert. It's cake-like and at least two of the ingredients were coconut milk and raisins. I'm not sure what else was in this dessert, but I liked it a lot. It was sweet, but overwhelmingly so and I could really taste the coconut milk. The dessert reminded me of the Filipino cassava cake. Very similar in texture, although the Shue Gi Mok was softer.

Overall, I really love putting together these sampler dinners. Not only do I get re-experience the dishes that I already love, but I also get to try out new dishes that I've never had before. It was a really fun night and I think that everyone enjoyed their meal so much that they'll definitely be going back.

To see pics, go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/la_addict/sets/72157594311851702/

Golden Triangle
7011 Greenleaf Ave
Whittier, CA, 90602
562-945-6778