The stretch of Broadway across from Mama’s Royal and near Ohgane is home to Clove & Hoof, a butcher/restaurant, and now Teni East Kitchen, a Burmese inspired restaurant I tried over the weekend.
The heavy dressing of crunchy ingredients are part of the appeal of Burmese salads like rainbow or tea leaf salad, so I was surprised by the lightness and loft of the pea leaf salad. On another day, I’d want a heavier portion of the peanuts, shallots, chickpeas, garlic, lime & fish sauce, but this was a good balance for the heavier food I’d eaten earlier that day.
The chickpea tofu (Shan tofu?) was a bold dish overall. It was served in a curry sauce, which on the upside was cool to see with a vegetarian entree that wasn’t what you’d get at a Thai restaurant, but on the downside was strong enough that I didn’t get a sense of the natural flavors of the chickpea tofu. The texture was like a dense pumpkin pie filling, and didn’t hold together as well as the custardy Shan tofu at Best of Burma in San Mateo.
They make the roti dough in house, in batches in the morning, and make them to order. The scrunched up roti was crisp and the layers not oily. These are much better than the centrally made ones at Burma Superstar, where the owner was a former manager according to Luke Tsai’s review.
Teni East Kitchen
4015 Broadway, Oakland, CA 94611
http://tenieastkitchen.com/
