Burmese Gems a rarity

When in Indianapolis, a favorite pastime of mine is to seek out new and exciting culinary experiences around the city that are either very unknown (hole-in-the-wall) or under appreciated. In Bloomington, it is a rare occasion for a new restaurant to open in such a supremely competitive and uniquely varied market.\nBloomington's famous restaurant row of Fourth Street between Dunn and Washington has just added a new cuisine to its growing oriental offerings that is likely to become a great rage. When Chinese becomes boring (and for me, that is often), seek out Burmese Gems at 413 E. Fourth St. just next door to Anyetsang's Little Tibet.\nAlong with Thai and Tibetan restaurants in Bloomington, the dishes of Burma, a neighbor of Thailand, are now available as tasty and exciting alternatives to the dullness of Americanese Mandarin food.\nOpen now, Burmese Gems is open for lunch and dinner and their growing menu offers about ten Burmese dishes with five assorted Burmese appetizer salads. They also include a few Thai favorites and a small but fresh selection of well made sushi.\nMonday evening, my friend and I decided to sample something from each of the three represented countries.\nFrom the look of their menu, the Burmese, like the Thai, base their dishes on rice noodles which are called kaukswe; other dishes are varieties of salads called lethoke. The main tastes in Burmese food seem to be bean curd and soy bean and other garden tastes that differ from Thai by means of the lack of peanuts and coconut milk. There are exceptions, but the main source for the foods is in the noodles.\nMy friend chose his favorite Thai dish, chicken Pad-Thai which is rice noodles with cabbage, bean sprouts, green onion, tofu, ground peanut and chicken (it also can come vegetarian or with shrimp). Either he was quite hungry or it was just very pleasing, because the plate was cleaned with an appetite of voracious proportions.\nWe both sampled a few bits of sushi from their menu going with yellow-tail (hamachi) and red-snapper (tai) nigiri sushi, an spicy tuna roll and for myself I ordered a salmon hand-roll (saki temaki). The fish was quite fresh and not at all chewy, and there was not an abundance of rice to make up for small amounts of fish. The tuna roll was nicely spiced but not too saucy and also not overpowering. The hand-roll was not spiced, even though it was advertized as a spicy salmon hand roll, but nevertheless it was well made and very tasty. Only the seaweed wrap was chewy from having sat on my plate a second too long.\nAs far as my dinner, I tried the Burmese Kaukswe Pyoke or rice noodle soup with fish balls (also available with pork balls). Having a special liking for fishball dishes, I found the Burmese soup to be quite interesting. The fish balls were obviously hand made for they were not perfectly round and they had a unique taste and texture that made them quite accessible and very tasty.\nThe soup itself was a fish based broth with roasted garlic, green onion, broccoli stalks and trees with a mountain of noodles. When it came, the soup was very hot to the tongue and it needed a bit of cooling. However, once I became accustomed to the temperature, it was a welcome change from the frozen winter weather. The only draw back from the soup was that it was a bit garlicky for my taste which makes for unpleasant breath on two counts: garlic and fish.\nOn the whole, Burmese Gems impressed me as few restaurants do. With their relatively cheap menu (all noodle specialties were $7 for dinner), I will most definitely venture there again to try the other interesting menu items.\nWhen in need of a break from Chinese or even if you're as curious as I am about new eateries, check out Burmese Gems.