Description
Jasmine Market is like a U.N. for Westside Muslims, a place to stop for a cheap halal lunch or a quick cup of tea, a mound of tandoori chicken for the family dinner or instant takeout iftar dinner during Ramadan. It is also, as far as I know, the only Burmese restaurant west of the San Gabriel Valley - the only place to taste the catfish chowder moh hin ga, the noodle salad khauk hswe thoke, or a real Burmese samusa, which is the funky, lamb-stuffed pastry of your dreams. If you manage to make it on a weekend, the noodle salad is the essence of what I know to be Burmese cooking: Sour, hot, salty and sweet all at the same time, the slightly undercooked wheat pasta is tossed with shrimp paste and fish sauce, powdered garbanzo beans and tamarind. The turmeric-yellow tofu salad is pretty much the same thing. There will definitely be bowls of moh hin ga, the thick catfish chowder, laced with transparent rice noodles and thin sections of banana-tree trunk, garnished with crunchy split-pea fritters, that is powerfully flavored Burmese national dish - a soup strong enough to overpower even that Pakistani soda. Recommended dishes: samusas, tofu salad, catfish chowder, lamb biryani. See full review.
