The most underrated place to eat in Philly. And delivers! Crispy watercress salad, beef salad, anything in coconut milk, thank me later
Warren W.
Note-Pandemic dining here is only take out or delivery. Even though I grew up in Philly and have spent an inordinate amount of time eating in Chinatown, I had no idea Rangoon existed and probably walked by it any number of times. A civil servant friend and I were going to attend a musical event in Center City on a weeknight but we wanted to have time for a good chin wag before the performance. She usually left the choice of restaurant up to me, but I got a text from her right before I left the house, telling me she'd decided where we'd have our dinner. Fine with me; I do like surprises. As we headed into Chinatown, I secretly felt a bit crestfallen since I was silently hoping we'd try a new place that Craig LaBan or Michael Klein had recently raved about. No-we stopped in front of Rangoon. Alice asked me if I'd eaten there before and said this was THE place she and her husband always relied on when they had out of town visitors to feed. I wondered-was that good or bad?! We were greeted and seated right away. Rangoon won't win any awards for decor, but it's very clean and I wasn't planning to eat the art work or the furniture. When I realized this was a Burmese restaurant, I relaxed, knowing I was in for an excellent meal-and was not disappointed. Rangoon's menu is extensive so making a choice was hard and having Alice tell me that 'everything' was good was no help. We were sharing, so she suggested we alternate picking a dish but both agreed on the cold Burmese tea which is very similar to Thai iced tea. It's refreshing with the spices in the food. My first choice was Thousand Layer Bread with Curry Potato Sauce; something I'd never had before. People rave about this dish. It's carby and not much else to me. The bread is pita-ish/naan-ish, I could not count past 3 or 4 layers in it and the potato dipping sauce was a mild, forgettable curry gravy. Alice picked the Asian Tea Leaf Salad. While I've had many versions of this when I lived in the Bay area, Rangoon's was the best I'd ever eaten. All the flavors and textures are almost psychedelic on the tongue. Since I did not want to linger in carb overload land, my choice was the Crispy Watercress Salad. Fried watercress with an acidic, addictive dressing. I'll say only this-don't miss it! Also-do NOT order it to go. I mean, you can, but for utmost enjoyment, it needs to be eaten asap, and sitting in a take out box, getting limp, is not going to do you or the salad any favors. We moved on with Alice's next pick, Village Style Okra Chicken, along with a large order of very fresh steamed white rice and my selection of Banana Leaf Fish in a red curry sauce served on a banana leaf. Spicy, moist fish, delicious all the way through. We were slowing down at this point. I wished for another stomach. The server, who had been very funny, informative and attentive throughout the meal said she told the cooks how much we liked the food. We did! We did! Spicy Eggplant, meltingly tender and garlicky, was our last choice and surprisingly, we had nothing to pack up to go, not even rice. This isn't to say that the portions were small. Hardly! We simply ate like gluttons. The kitchen sent us a dessert on the house-Jello Crunch Ice-which is not unlike Pinoy halo halo; a mixture of pineapple, tapioca, assorted flavored jello-ish cubes and sweetened coconut milk. It would have been so rude not to eat this then and there-so we did just that. I still dream about this dessert. Writing that everything was perfect is not wildly descriptive for a Yelp review, but it's true. I urge the reader to eat here to see for his or her self how very true that deceptively simple description of the feast you can have here truly is.
Di K.
The potato curry dipping sauce for the 1000 layer bread might be my new best friend! We got the calamari salad, fish soup and tofu salad as well- all were great but next time I'll be ordering all things potato!!
Anirudh Pillai
One of the best restaurants in Chinatown. I should have tried sooner. I had never had Burmese food before this and absolutely loved it. I would highly recommend trying thousand layered bread with curry chicken, lentin fritters. They were absolutely delicious, We tried North Burmese noodles and Coconut rice with spicy chicken curry for main course and they were quite good. Price is reasonable with decent portion size. I wish dine in available when we went , we can't wait to come back and try more from their menu.Instagram: journey_man16
Chirag C
Interesting food. I never had Burmese food before. It’s very similar to Indian food. The chili chicken was very simile to Indian version. I will also recommend the Potato and poori. The decor is authentic. The staff is attentive and friendly. Definitely worth a try.
J J.
I apologize for not writing a review for this place sooner! Every time we go there, despite the fact I have no idea what I was ordering, everything come out amazing. You know how some cuisines would have a big menu but then everything taste very much alike? NOT HERE. Every dish is special in it's own way. For us Asian taste buds, it's very important to have variety of ingredients and flavor. Rangoon has definitely withstood its reputation. I would like to visit Burma one day because of this restaurant. Don't forget to order the thousand layer bread with curry. Put it in your shopping cart, now.
nataliaspinelli
Every bite was a mouthful of OIL!! Who wants to eat oily greasy "thousand layer bread" Nothing like the photos! We spent over $90+ for TWO people & tried many of their dishes. So disappointing. The items were NOT prepared Fresh nor did they taste FRESH. The food was BLAND (no complex homemade cooking flavor). I feel terrible writing such a negative review on small business like this one - but I hope it will save another family $100+ of WASTED money especially now-a-days. Not worth it!!! There is too much GOOD quality competition close to this restaurant. Maybe if their prices were 70% less then maybe you could justify what we ordered!
Nadia P.A.
I. Love. This. Place. Top 3 restaurants in Philadelphia!I recommend N14. South East Asia Noodle (their version of pad Thai) and N18. Shwe Toung Noodle which is an egg noodle with chicken, sweet coconut milk, onions, fish sauce, and chickpea powder. It's like nothing over had. Kind of like a tom kha coconut soup but in noodles with amazing chicken. Honestly I can't wait to try all their dishes. I'm sure they're all amazing.
Kellie Corcoran
We ordered takeout from this place. Looks like a hole in the wall from the outside, but the food we ordered was REALLY good. Prices were also reasonable. Overall, really impressed with this place and will definitely go back next time we are in Philly.
Jennifer C.
Good food at a good value. Everything was reasonably priced and tasted delicious. Got takeout here a few times and was always happy with my food. I've tried the South East Asia noodles, thousand layer bread with curry chicken sauce, calamari ala burma, spicy basil fried rice, and spicy red fried rice. Everything was stellar. My favorite has to be their calamari ala burma. It is a smaller portion of food, but the dish is packed with so much flavor. It's acidic, savory, garlicky, chewy, and so much more. Be aware that their spicy red fried rice is no joke. When they said spicy, they weren't kidding. It was a bit too spicy for me. The dish was loaded with thai chilis so it can be a lot to handle. Since I live around the area, I am sure I will be coming back a few more times to try out their other dishes. Just remember that there is a $15 minimum for credit card!
Delicious burmese food in philly and affordable too! We got the watercress salad (highly recommend!!!!!), coconut curry chicken, fisherman noodle soup, and 2 orders of the golden triangles (burmese samosa). The best dish and interesting one was the crispy watercress salad ($10). Sooo worth it and so good. It's crispy and the sauce that comes with it tastes like a sweet Thai chili sauce. The golden triangles were stuffed with a mashed up potato and came with a dipping sauce. 3 pieces per order. The fisherman noodle soup ($12) had a flat vermicelli for the noodles and there was an egg as well as fried onion. The coconut curry chicken was okay and had potatoes as well.
Jennie C.
Such a gem!! We only got a few dishes to try but the flavor was so unique and outstanding. A must order is the fried watercress salad that comes with a sweet acidic sauce. The thousand layer bread with the potato sauce was also great but the bread was slightly hard to chew. One dish we tried that we probably will skip next time is the chicken mint kebab. This was more just a dish that had sauce, chicken, and veggies rather than what we thought it was going to be.
Nate T.
I love this place. Burmese food is a wonderful mix of flavors and textures and Rangoon does it justice. My favorites are the ginger salad (if you like ginger, give it a try! It's one of my favorite Burmese food), the thousand layer bread, and the Shan noodle soup (though I wouldn't mind if it was a bit more spicy). I need to try the mohinga again, or maybe I haven't had it here yet. In any case, this place is legit. As of this date, it's only open for takeout and delivery but their food travels well. Even the thousand layer bread held up!
Orest Smovzh
Works only as a take out right now, and I managed to get only tea leaf salad (wasn’t very hungry) but it was delicious. Looking forward to the next time and getting more food!
illa illa
My favorite restaurant ever!! The women who own and run the place are awesome and are always there. The food is delicious and unique . It’s the only Burmese restaurant in the city
The most underrated place to eat in Philly. And delivers! Crispy watercress salad, beef salad, anything in coconut milk, thank me later
Note-Pandemic dining here is only take out or delivery. Even though I grew up in Philly and have spent an inordinate amount of time eating in Chinatown, I had no idea Rangoon existed and probably walked by it any number of times. A civil servant friend and I were going to attend a musical event in Center City on a weeknight but we wanted to have time for a good chin wag before the performance. She usually left the choice of restaurant up to me, but I got a text from her right before I left the house, telling me she'd decided where we'd have our dinner. Fine with me; I do like surprises. As we headed into Chinatown, I secretly felt a bit crestfallen since I was silently hoping we'd try a new place that Craig LaBan or Michael Klein had recently raved about. No-we stopped in front of Rangoon. Alice asked me if I'd eaten there before and said this was THE place she and her husband always relied on when they had out of town visitors to feed. I wondered-was that good or bad?! We were greeted and seated right away. Rangoon won't win any awards for decor, but it's very clean and I wasn't planning to eat the art work or the furniture. When I realized this was a Burmese restaurant, I relaxed, knowing I was in for an excellent meal-and was not disappointed. Rangoon's menu is extensive so making a choice was hard and having Alice tell me that 'everything' was good was no help. We were sharing, so she suggested we alternate picking a dish but both agreed on the cold Burmese tea which is very similar to Thai iced tea. It's refreshing with the spices in the food. My first choice was Thousand Layer Bread with Curry Potato Sauce; something I'd never had before. People rave about this dish. It's carby and not much else to me. The bread is pita-ish/naan-ish, I could not count past 3 or 4 layers in it and the potato dipping sauce was a mild, forgettable curry gravy. Alice picked the Asian Tea Leaf Salad. While I've had many versions of this when I lived in the Bay area, Rangoon's was the best I'd ever eaten. All the flavors and textures are almost psychedelic on the tongue. Since I did not want to linger in carb overload land, my choice was the Crispy Watercress Salad. Fried watercress with an acidic, addictive dressing. I'll say only this-don't miss it! Also-do NOT order it to go. I mean, you can, but for utmost enjoyment, it needs to be eaten asap, and sitting in a take out box, getting limp, is not going to do you or the salad any favors. We moved on with Alice's next pick, Village Style Okra Chicken, along with a large order of very fresh steamed white rice and my selection of Banana Leaf Fish in a red curry sauce served on a banana leaf. Spicy, moist fish, delicious all the way through. We were slowing down at this point. I wished for another stomach. The server, who had been very funny, informative and attentive throughout the meal said she told the cooks how much we liked the food. We did! We did! Spicy Eggplant, meltingly tender and garlicky, was our last choice and surprisingly, we had nothing to pack up to go, not even rice. This isn't to say that the portions were small. Hardly! We simply ate like gluttons. The kitchen sent us a dessert on the house-Jello Crunch Ice-which is not unlike Pinoy halo halo; a mixture of pineapple, tapioca, assorted flavored jello-ish cubes and sweetened coconut milk. It would have been so rude not to eat this then and there-so we did just that. I still dream about this dessert. Writing that everything was perfect is not wildly descriptive for a Yelp review, but it's true. I urge the reader to eat here to see for his or her self how very true that deceptively simple description of the feast you can have here truly is.
The potato curry dipping sauce for the 1000 layer bread might be my new best friend! We got the calamari salad, fish soup and tofu salad as well- all were great but next time I'll be ordering all things potato!!
One of the best restaurants in Chinatown. I should have tried sooner. I had never had Burmese food before this and absolutely loved it. I would highly recommend trying thousand layered bread with curry chicken, lentin fritters. They were absolutely delicious, We tried North Burmese noodles and Coconut rice with spicy chicken curry for main course and they were quite good. Price is reasonable with decent portion size. I wish dine in available when we went , we can't wait to come back and try more from their menu.Instagram: journey_man16
Interesting food. I never had Burmese food before. It’s very similar to Indian food. The chili chicken was very simile to Indian version. I will also recommend the Potato and poori. The decor is authentic. The staff is attentive and friendly. Definitely worth a try.
I apologize for not writing a review for this place sooner! Every time we go there, despite the fact I have no idea what I was ordering, everything come out amazing. You know how some cuisines would have a big menu but then everything taste very much alike? NOT HERE. Every dish is special in it's own way. For us Asian taste buds, it's very important to have variety of ingredients and flavor. Rangoon has definitely withstood its reputation. I would like to visit Burma one day because of this restaurant. Don't forget to order the thousand layer bread with curry. Put it in your shopping cart, now.
Every bite was a mouthful of OIL!! Who wants to eat oily greasy "thousand layer bread" Nothing like the photos! We spent over $90+ for TWO people & tried many of their dishes. So disappointing. The items were NOT prepared Fresh nor did they taste FRESH. The food was BLAND (no complex homemade cooking flavor). I feel terrible writing such a negative review on small business like this one - but I hope it will save another family $100+ of WASTED money especially now-a-days. Not worth it!!! There is too much GOOD quality competition close to this restaurant. Maybe if their prices were 70% less then maybe you could justify what we ordered!
I. Love. This. Place. Top 3 restaurants in Philadelphia!I recommend N14. South East Asia Noodle (their version of pad Thai) and N18. Shwe Toung Noodle which is an egg noodle with chicken, sweet coconut milk, onions, fish sauce, and chickpea powder. It's like nothing over had. Kind of like a tom kha coconut soup but in noodles with amazing chicken. Honestly I can't wait to try all their dishes. I'm sure they're all amazing.
We ordered takeout from this place. Looks like a hole in the wall from the outside, but the food we ordered was REALLY good. Prices were also reasonable. Overall, really impressed with this place and will definitely go back next time we are in Philly.
Good food at a good value. Everything was reasonably priced and tasted delicious. Got takeout here a few times and was always happy with my food. I've tried the South East Asia noodles, thousand layer bread with curry chicken sauce, calamari ala burma, spicy basil fried rice, and spicy red fried rice. Everything was stellar. My favorite has to be their calamari ala burma. It is a smaller portion of food, but the dish is packed with so much flavor. It's acidic, savory, garlicky, chewy, and so much more. Be aware that their spicy red fried rice is no joke. When they said spicy, they weren't kidding. It was a bit too spicy for me. The dish was loaded with thai chilis so it can be a lot to handle. Since I live around the area, I am sure I will be coming back a few more times to try out their other dishes. Just remember that there is a $15 minimum for credit card!
Restaurantji Recommends
Delicious burmese food in philly and affordable too! We got the watercress salad (highly recommend!!!!!), coconut curry chicken, fisherman noodle soup, and 2 orders of the golden triangles (burmese samosa). The best dish and interesting one was the crispy watercress salad ($10). Sooo worth it and so good. It's crispy and the sauce that comes with it tastes like a sweet Thai chili sauce. The golden triangles were stuffed with a mashed up potato and came with a dipping sauce. 3 pieces per order. The fisherman noodle soup ($12) had a flat vermicelli for the noodles and there was an egg as well as fried onion. The coconut curry chicken was okay and had potatoes as well.
Such a gem!! We only got a few dishes to try but the flavor was so unique and outstanding. A must order is the fried watercress salad that comes with a sweet acidic sauce. The thousand layer bread with the potato sauce was also great but the bread was slightly hard to chew. One dish we tried that we probably will skip next time is the chicken mint kebab. This was more just a dish that had sauce, chicken, and veggies rather than what we thought it was going to be.
I love this place. Burmese food is a wonderful mix of flavors and textures and Rangoon does it justice. My favorites are the ginger salad (if you like ginger, give it a try! It's one of my favorite Burmese food), the thousand layer bread, and the Shan noodle soup (though I wouldn't mind if it was a bit more spicy). I need to try the mohinga again, or maybe I haven't had it here yet. In any case, this place is legit. As of this date, it's only open for takeout and delivery but their food travels well. Even the thousand layer bread held up!
Works only as a take out right now, and I managed to get only tea leaf salad (wasn’t very hungry) but it was delicious. Looking forward to the next time and getting more food!
My favorite restaurant ever!! The women who own and run the place are awesome and are always there. The food is delicious and unique . It’s the only Burmese restaurant in the city