Monasaba

YEMEN 🇾🇪

Courtesy of Monasaba/Google Maps.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This restaurant has permanently closed. An updated version of this article (20 October 2024) is available as part of the Historical section of our Substack page. Check that out here:

https://eattheworldla.substack.com/p/monasaba-yemeni-restaurant-orange-county

Busy Beach Blvd. may not be the first place in the Southland that you would think you could find architectural details common in Yemen, but opening the doors of an otherwise nondescript building in Stanton is a welcome reward. Colorful stained glass panels called qamariya share wall space with large photographs of Yemen's markets and islands while traditional fabrics are used for upholstery.

So far it seems as though not that many people have discovered this new pleasure in their midst, as the dining room is for the most part empty despite the state re-opening fully. This newest branch of Monsaba is the first in the US, after two have established themselves in Toronto.

Monasaba presents itself as a fast-casual restaurant, orders are made at the counter before sitting down. But the hospitality levels are on point despite of this, and of course many of these dishes require slow cooking so there is a lot of preparation before you even get in your car to come.

One thing that is prepared after ordering is the Yemeni-style bread, which has its own special tools. The dough is first flattened over a convex, cloth-covered device that is also used to transfer it to the side of a round tandoori oven. If you have never seen this preparation before, try to sneak a peek when orders are being made.

You can wait until the end of the meal, but just as well to order a cup of shahi adani ($3, not shown) to enjoy while eating. This most typical of Yemeni teas is full of cardamom and boiled with milk. Thankfully they only make it slightly sweet and serve it with extra sugar packets for those that want to make it more so. In many restaurants, this hot tea is in a large cooler and self-service, but intensely sweet just the way most Yemeni people like it.

The foods of Yemen are somewhat spicier than those of the rest of the Middle East, so ordering a few of the dishes here will be accompanied by the question of "How spicy?" The levels are still below some of the most spicy cuisines, so do not be afraid to go for it if you like your food to have a kick.

One of the two main dishes they prepare here is mandi, named for the aromatic basmati that slow-roasted meats are laid on. You can have either lamb or chicken in different sizes as custom on this most favored Arabic dish. The half chicken mandi ($13, above) is already a large amount of food, dark and white meat plopped in the center of very buttery rice turned yellow by turmeric and sprinkled with raisins, almonds, and fried onions. Mandi is served with a side of spicy sahaweq, a sauce of tomatoes, chilies, and garlic that should be applied liberally.

Raisins are an important part of eating and drinking in Yemen, and while they do not have it yet at their California location, ask about the nakie, a drink made from hours of soaking raisins. The best part of this might be the scooping required at the end of the drink to enjoy the dried fruits.

The meat options for the stir-frid qolaba dishes offer more variety, with beef (both diced and ground) and lamb liver joining the more standard lamb qolaba ($12, above). The lamb cubes are cooked with green onions, tomatoes, and cilantro, and what is probably a house secret spice mix.

A small portion of sahaweq jubn ($3, not shown) was recommended to accompany this and really hit the spot. This "sauce" has a base of feta cheese with chilies, garlic, and tomatoes, and can be used as a dip when picking up the qolaba with bread. The tandoori cooking creates a wonderful play between crispy exterior and fluffy insides, something that would not be accomplished from normal baking. The bites made from this trio might just be the winners here at Monasaba.

Make sure to order a plate of foul monasaba ($8, above), the restaurant's riff on a popular fava bean "dip" enjoyed with more bread. Here they season it with tomato sauce, resulting in the darker orange hue. The side of sahaweq jubn also pairs really well with this, and even though both the foul and qolaba come with a large piece of bread, you will find yourself wanting more by the end of the meal.

A few months from now when the tables at Monasaba are full of families from Orange County and beyond, this colorful and tasty restaurant is going to be a really enjoyable place to come to eat lunches and dinners.

📍 11382 Beach Blvd., Stanton, Orange County

🇾🇪🇾🇪🇾🇪

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Irrawaddy Taste of Burma

MYANMAR 🇲🇲

🇲🇲 MYANMAR

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: An updated version of this article (31 May 2024) is available as part of the Historical section of our Substack page. Check that out here:

https://eattheworldla.substack.com/p/irrawaddy-taste-of-burma

While many cuisines have certain locations around Greater Los Angeles that you can head to and find the tastiest versions clustered around each other, Burmese food has never worked quite that way. The vast region of the San Gabriel Valley might be the most dense with the food of Myanmar, but since Golden Owl closed, only three restaurants remain.

Culver City and Inglewood both have markets with some Burmese options, while Orange County has to rely on just one five year old full service restaurant to get its fix. Opened in early 2016 by an uncle and his nephew, the modest restaurant has the charm of the family business it is, and is respite from Stanton's somewhat monotonous chain-heavy eats.

Clockwise from left: La phat thote, tofu thote, gin thote.

Stepping up to the menu outdoors, it is immediately obvious that the restaurant gets a vast majority of customers that know very little about Burmese food. The kind woman who was handling orders on this day offered her help if there were any questions. On this day it had been predetermined that the order would rely mostly on the fresh salads unique to Myanmar, often times called "thoke" on menus but here transliterated as "thote."

Irrawaddy gets its name from the English of the Ayeyarwady River, which meanders its way from the north of the country, through the heart, and into the Andaman Sea. The menu at this restaurant with such a grand namesake includes most of the usual suspects in that category. Gin thote ($12, above bottom) is a salad of cabbage and shredded pickled ginger, tossed with tomatoes, peanuts, lentils, and chickpea powder.

Perennial favorite la phat thote ($12, above) is a similarly diverse array of textures and flavors, centering around the fermented tea leaves that give the dish its name. Irrawaddy does this especially well, using more of the tea leaves than normal and thus making a more bitter finished product than most restaurants. Extra crunch is in the form of fried bits of garlic as well as sesame and sunflower seeds.

Their tofu thote ($12, below) is also a winner, without the crunch but with a nice ladle of tamarind garlic sauce thrown on top. Burmese tofu is yellow because it is made with chickpea flour rather than soybean, which makes any dish using it take on this flavor as well rather than just the flavors of its other ingredients.

Thote dishes, all served room temperature and freshly mixed in front of you when ordered from vendors or restaurants in Myanmar, can be made with noodles as well. These dishes like nun gyi thote (translated as "southern noodles") and kauk swear thote ("Mandalay noodles") are available here and expected to be delicious. Unfortunately this order did not have room for them.

Noodles were enjoyed though, in the form of Myanmar's morning favorite moh hinga ($12, below), a fish stew with rice vermicelli noodles. Even before the sun rises in Myanmar, you will find steaming pots of soup ready for people going off to work. The most popular of these is this dish, with a broth made from catfish yet never seeming fishy. The rice noodles instead grab their flavors from lemongrass, ginger, onions, and garlic, as well as many spices. Ask for some dried red pepper to add a nice kick to it, and give it a good squirt of lime. Crispy fritters and parsley adorn the top.

Anyone who has spent time in Myanmar will have most likely eaten plenty of egg curry, which seems to be the most popular type of curry. Often you will find plenty of okra in these, so here they have given the vegetable double billing. Egg with okra ($12, below) is a deeply savory and oily dish that begs to be spooned over jasmine rice.

It starts to give hints towards its South Asian roots, which play a large part in the cooking of the country today. British colonial rule had a lot to do with this, as many Indians from the subcontinent came during this period Burma was a province of British India as soldiers, civil servants, and workers.

Future visits to Irrawaddy will of course take in some of those noodle thote dishes, but also look to include meals from their "Home Cooking" section of the menu. Here there are many other curry dishes as well as masala and coconut-based treats.

Hopefully that will be very soon, safely in the confines of their hospitality.

🇲🇲🇲🇲🇲🇲

STANTON Orange County

7076 Katella Avenue

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Steel Pan Pizza

🇺🇸 UNITED STATES (Michigan)

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: An updated version of this article (10 May 2024) is available as part of the Historical section of our Substack page. Check that out here:

https://eattheworldla.substack.com/p/steel-pan-pizza

Detroit-style pizza proves that the pizza emoji is not all-inclusive. In fact, it does not even begin to describe the experience of eating Detroit-style pizza. Humanity has a long way to go with such narrow-minded emoji options.

 

This new spot that opened up along with the recently renovated Rodeo 39 Public Market gets its name from the history of this style of pizza. The origins go back to cooking in industrial trays that were meant for other uses and had nothing to do with pizza, creating this unique shape and thickness.

 

Cheese is used not just on top, but also underneath and on the edges, giving the crust a crispy and slightly burnt feel. Inside, the middle is still chewy and soft.

 

The cuppy 'roni ($10.50, above and below) pie is a good place to start. Each pie is the same size, a square that is cut into four quadrants. The thin pepperoni cups catch a bit less grease than their thicker counterparts on that hate-filled pizza from New York, but as a whole this pie is fantastic.

 

Steel Pan uses good ingredients for everything they prepare, including the Caesar salad and fries that are slightly visible above and make a good addition for rounding out a meal.

 

While it just appears to be a fresh arugula pie, the Steel Pan style pizza ($12.50, below) is actually an overload of ingredients. Beneath that blanket of greens and Parmesan are grilled chicken and applewood smoke bacon as well as mushrooms. This pie uses a white sauce rather than red.

 

 

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

STANTON Orange County

12885 Beach Blvd.

I COULD USE YOUR HELP

Eat the World Los Angeles is and always has been free. No advertisements block the content or pop over what you read. If this website has helped you explore your city and its wonderful cultures a little better and you have the means to contribute, please consider doing so. Eat the World Los Angeles is a labor of love, but also takes a lot of money and time everyday to keep running.

You can Venmo me @JAREDCOHEE or click here to send PayPal donation, no account is necessary. Thank you!