Mandalay Restaurant
Burmese restaurant · Presidio Terrace
4348 California St, San Francisco, CA 94118
Highlights
Burmese dishes like tea leaf salad, noodles, and curries.
Burmese dishes like tea leaf salad, noodles, and curries.
"San Francisco is home to an impressive number of Burmese restaurants but the first and, therefore, oldest is Mandalay, the Richmond District institution that opened in 1984. It changed owners (within the same family) but continues to offer Southeast Asian specialties including mango chicken, Burmese curry beef, and fish chowder. The must-order item at the no-frills, yellow-walled restaurant is the tea leaf salad, a textural delight made with fermented tea leaves, fried garlic, dried shrimp, sesame seeds, lemon, green pepper, and roasted peanuts." - Paolo Bicchieri
"One of San Francisco’s oldest and most well-regarded Burmese restaurants, Mandalay also offers its full menu for delivery. The restaurant’s colorful, crunchy Burmese salads — including what’s probably the best-fermented tea leaf salad in the city — are great to-go options, as are the intensely flavorful soups and noodle dishes." - Dianne de Guzman
"This California Street Burmese restaurant is known for its tableside tea leaf salads and uber-attentive service, with numerous family members making stops with ginger lemonade throughout the meal. In 2024, Mandalay was named an America’s Classics winner, with the foundation recognizing the innovative restaurant as a high watermark in a city with plenty of fantastic Burmese options." - Paolo Bicchieri
"Mandalay was the first Burmese restaurant to open in the city back in 1984, and the Richmond spot is still the undisputed best of the bunch—they're holding it down with hearty dishes you’ll instinctively want to hunker down over on foggy nights. Creamy ong no kaw soi is packed with bouncy noodles and strips of chicken. The balada is flaky perfection. And the tea leaf salad here comes without romaine lettuce, making it an earthier and more intensely nutty version than the others in town." - julia chen 1
"There are several great Burmese spots in the Richmond but Mandalay did it first, opening in 1984, back when tea leaf salad was a novelty to most. It’s known for homey standards like samusa soup, as well as specials like the Rangoon spicy fish along with fragrant noodle dishes and the best fermented tea leaf salad in town — a rendition of the classic without lettuce or cabbage. The restaurant received the America’s Classics Award from the James Beard Foundation in 2024." - Paolo Bicchieri
