Nan Yang - Nice alternative to average Asian
Written: Jun 02 '04 (Updated Apr 12 '06)
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Pros: Very good food and friendly service
Cons: So-so décor, but no major complaints
The Bottom Line: A nice neighborhood place featuring an under-appreciated cuisine. Check it out sometime.
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| lyagushka's Full Review: Nan Yang |
A fixture of Oakland's upscale Rockridge neighborhood for more than a decade, Nan Yang offers up richly flavored but wonderfully light Burmese fare. I've eaten at Nan Yang several times for dinner and once for lunch. My most recent visit, in March, was on a Tuesday night in a party of three people. All together we were very impressed with Nan Yang.
The décor and ambiance at Nan Yang are perfectly decent but nothing to write home about. Neither especially elegant nor intimate, the tables are set with white tablecloths, cloth napkins, and both chopsticks and ordinary silverware. Fortunately, the spacing of the tables is generous and the noise level is usually on the low end of moderate. As the evening darkened, the dim lighting of the dining room made the ambiance a little more cozy. Mild jazz played softly in the background during our meal. A few outdoor tables on the tiny front patio offered a challenge to hardy diners willing to brave an east bay evening, though there were small overhead heaters to keep the worst of the chill away.
The Menu and the Food
Burmese cuisine, at least as it's rendered at Nan Yang, seems to combine the heft and savoriness of Indian food with the light, full-of-contrasts cuisine of Thailand. I find that I quite enjoy this combination of styles and flavors. Burmese leaves me feeling quite satisfied, but without the heaviness of an Indian meal or the chili burn of a good Thai meal. It's nice to know that there is a cuisine that falls in this happy middle ground.
Nan Yang's menu offers about nine appetizers and salads, and several different varieties of entrée, including curries, soups and noodle dishes. The menu includes plenty of vegetarian dishes, all noted with a V on the menu. Over the years, I've found that some dishes are definitely better than others. Fortunately, during this most recent visit, my friends and I chose our dishes well, with some help from past experience. We shared everything among the three of us so that we all got to try a bit of everything.
The chef excels with two spectacular salads: a ginger salad mixed by hand at our table - very light, crunchy and refreshing. It contained a delightful medley of unusual ingredients, such as preserved shredded ginger, toasted yellow split peas, dry roasted fava beans, crushed peanuts, coconut chips, chopped onions, shredded cabbage and dried shrimp. The green papaya salad was similar to a Thai som tom salad, but lighter, with no peanuts or tomato. My friends and I were ravenously hungry on my last visit to Nan Yang, so we also ordered fried squash appetizer to go with the salads. Though not as spectacular or unusual as the salads, this appetizer was tasty, served with a bed of lettuce and a mildly sweet and spicy tomato based dipping sauce. The chef/owner told us it was made with Burmese opal squash, which I'd never heard of before. I was pleased that the batter-fried slices weren't soggy or too greasy.
For our first main we ordered spinach and tomatoes in a curried tomato and tamarind sauce. The dish was acceptably good, though the tomatoes were out of season and therefore somewhat bland in and of themselves. There was just the tiniest bit spicy-hotness to the sauce. We also ordered the curried lamb with potatoes and yellow rice; it arrived in a delicious, thick, savory brown curry sauce, again with just a little kick to it. It also came with shredded carrots and fresh greens. I think the smoked eggplant with ground pork was my favorite main course. Contrary to expectation this was quite a dry dish without a unifying sauce, but very good. The "ground" pork was really more like minced pork, the meat serving just as a garnish. The eggplant was very smoky and not mushy at all - almost al dente.
For dessert we tried the tapioca pudding prepared with golden raisins, coconut milk and an elusive orange flavor, served chilled. This would be especially divine on a hot summer day. We further indulged in the fried bananas, which were simply to die for. Three pieces of batter-fried fruit were served piping hot with a generous scoop of melting vanilla ice cream. There were black sesame seeds in the batter, which added a very interesting minor accent to the end of our meal.
Every note of the meal was well executed; all of the dishes were good to excellent. I especially liked the variety of fresh herbs that served as ingredients and garnishes. On other visits I've enjoyed the delicious curried tomato garlic noodles. However, the pork garlic noodles I had for lunch here were very plain, dry and not very flavorful. The waitstaff seemed willing to make recommendations, so ask questions if you're in doubt about what to order. Portion sizes were good; neither too small nor so large as to encourage abject gluttony.
Service
I would describe the service at Nan Yang as friendly and casual, yet remarkably efficient. We were greeted courteously and seated promptly on our arrival without reservations. We didn't seem to have one designated waiter; we were attended by at least three different servers. Our questions about the ingredients were answered confidently and knowledgeably, but without too much elaboration. (They don't give out their recipes, alas!) Our water glasses were kept filled throughout the meal. One of my friends dropped a fork during our meal, and though it wasn't quite caught in mid-air, the waiter had a clean fork at the table by the time my friend was able to retrieve it from the floor. And while this doesn't directly reflect on the waitstaff, our food was brought to the table quickly, which is always a nice bonus.
Prices
Our bill came to $78 before tip. This seemed well within reason for three appetizers, three entrees, three beers and two desserts. Certainly this isn't a fantastic bargain, but I consider it a fair price for the quality of the food and the service.
Final Thoughts
I would recommend this restaurant for a nice but uncomplicated meal with friends or family. Those who enjoy Thai and/or Indian cuisine should especially think about trying out a meal at Nan Yang. Choose your dishes wisely and I don't think you'll be disappointed. The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner, and not usually crowded on a weeknight. But I would recommend reservations for a Friday or Saturday night.
Other restaurants I can recommend include:
East Bay
• A Coté - lively pan-Mediterranean tapas in a sleek but fun atmosphere
• Cafe Rouge - best choice for steak or high quality meats in the East Bay
• Cha-ya - vegetarian Japanese restaurant in the Gourmet Ghetto
• Chez Panisse Café - Alice Waters' sumptuous fare at about half the price
• Lalime's - superb New American fare in an intimate setting
• Manpuku - a cheap and simple ramen bar in the Elmwood
• Oliveto - exquisite Italian in Rockridge
• Pho 84 - paradigm-shifting (really!) Vietnamese in downtown Oakland
• Rick & Ann's and La Note - both offer excellent choices for breakfast
• Shen Hua - great Chinese in Berkeley's Elmwood neighborhood
San Francisco
• Boulevard - hands down, the best restaurant in San Francisco
• Woodward's Garden, which is almost as good as Boulevard
• Betelnut - highly recommended for a fun night with a group
• Helmand - little known but excellent Afghan place and a great value
• Suppenkuche - unpretentious German bierhaus charm in Hayes Valley
On the other hand, I can't recommend Cafe Cacao, which is part of the Scharffen Berger chocolate empire, nor Pizzaiolo which features pretentious, outrageously priced pizza served by hipper-than-thou servers.
Recommended:
Yes
Kid Friendliness: No
Vegetarian Friendly: Yes
Notes, Tips or Menu Recommendations Check out the ginger salad, the vegetarian garlic noodles and the desserts!
Best Suited For: Friends
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