From Restaurant Staple to Dinner Party Ritual
A Bay Area icon, a Burmese feast, and the night coconut curry stole the show
“Some cookbooks find you. Others feel like they’ve always been there.”
In the Bay Area, Burma Superstar is one of those places. If you’ve lived here long enough, you’ve either stood in line on Clement Street—tucked into a denim jacket against the fog—or you’ve been told, with conviction, “You have to try the tea leaf salad.”
But it’s more than a restaurant. It’s a bridge. A place that introduced Burmese flavors to a curious city and let them speak in their own voice—fermented, fried, fermented again. Loud and delicate. Built with care and conviction.
When Desmond Tan and Kate Leahy released the Burma Superstar cookbook, they gave that bridge permanence. Page after page, the book feels like an open hand—welcoming you not just to cook, but to remember. To listen. To reimagine ingredients you’ve never bought and stories you’ve never lived.
That’s why we chose it for our June Sauté & Sips dinner.
Because some books feel rooted. Personal. Local.
And somehow still vast. Expansive.
A love letter to a cuisine—but also to community.
And really, isn’t that exactly what a cookbook club should be?
There’s a memory I always return to.
My first time at Burma Superstar, years ago—wedged into a corner table near the window. I was still new to the Bay then. Homesick for something I couldn’t name. I ordered the coconut chicken curry on instinct.
The first bite stopped me.
Not because it was spicy.
Not because it was unfamiliar.
But because it felt like something I’d known in another life.
I looked up and said aloud, “I don’t know what’s in this, but I want to learn how to make it.”
That moment came rushing back as we were setting the table this month.
We opened with green mango salad and sesame chicken—
bright, brisk, unapologetically punchy.
Fried yellow bean tofu arrived next: golden, delicate, barely touched the plate before disappearing into hands and mouths. Someone murmured “this sauce should be bottled.”
Basil chicken followed, then yellow split pea falafel with tamarind-ginger dipping sauce that surprised everyone with its warmth. The kind of subtle heat that lingers.
For mains, we served superstar vegetarian noodles, fiery tofu with rice, and the dish that stopped conversation mid-sentence—
the coconut chicken curry.
Creamy. Aromatic.
Soothing, then suddenly bright.
One of those rare recipes that speaks before you ask anything of it.
And then, dessert.
Homemade coconut ice cream, slowly melting into warm black rice pudding.
Semolina cake, tender and not too sweet, with a crumble that fell like quiet punctuation.
And tall glasses of calamansi sharbat—our zesty little nod to Indian summers, reimagined with Burmese brightness.
But more than the dishes, it was the way they held us.
The cookbook gave us a map.
The dinner gave us a moment.
And something between the two gave us each other.
“You don’t need to know a cuisine to honor it.
You just need to show up—with intention, and a plate.”
Some cookbooks anchor us in place.
Others prepare us to leave it.
This one did both.
Next month, we won’t cook from just one book.
We’ll follow a thread—across regions, across authors, across memory.
A theme, not a title. A feeling, not a single voice.
Because sometimes, what we’re really hungry for
is the space between.