Pagan

This place had great food for a cheap price. Too bad!

It’s impossible to talk about Bagan without comparing it to its largest and closest competitor, Burma Superstar. Allow me to state for the record, Bagan is SO MUCH BETTER.
Bagan has everything: the amazing Burmese fare that has become so popular for eateries in this area, friendly and helpful staff, available tables even during the dinner rush, and the best: a relaxed, laid-​back atmosphere.
Let’s talk about the food. The tea leaf salad is delicious, the pumpkin-​pork stew is delectable and tender, the lamb curry is so intensely flavorful without being too gamey, and the coconut chicken curry noodles are addictive and irresistible. My two friends and I were stuffed full, but finished every bite. I wish I had tried more things, but alas, I only have one stomach.
Lots of reviews talk about the wait at Burma and B-​Star, and the lack thereof at Bagan, and while that’s significant and a huge plus, it’s not the only thing that brings people back. It’s so pleasant just being in the space, which is very spacious, cool, and stress-​free. It feels like the kind of dining experience that is truly about the experience, not just the food or the hype.

I can’t wait to come back to this place! My first time with Burmese food and I loved it. They also serve Thai fare here, but I can get that almost anywhere so I stuck exclusively with the Burmese stuff.
I had no idea what to get but they had a list of noodle selections which intrigued me. I got the ordered the Shwe Taung Kauswer (Coconut Chicken Curry) with flour noodles. It was thick, hearty, and the flour noodles have a nice dumpling-​like consistency rather than the springiness of the more familiar textures from pasta and rice noodles. The curry was not like Thai, but not exactly like Indian either — like the cuisine in general, it seemed to take influences from both culinary cultures and added their own spin on it. Whatever it is, I can’t wait to try it again! 4.5 stars.

The moo hin nga (catfish noodle soup) is a must-​get. The ever-​so-​slight spiciness of the soup makes it perfect comfort food for a typical overcast day in SF, but whatever the crunchy stuff (toasted nuts/​beans?) is in the soup adds a textural contrast that distinguishes it from the rest. The noodles must have been precooked and reheated or something because there were clumps of them stuck together in the soup, but that’s really not a big deal, just something we all noticed. The Burmese style noodle salad was okay, but nothing to write home about. The duck curry was really tasty (standard, but tasty), and the extra curry helped liven up the relatively forgettable noodle salad.
I’ll have to try their tea leaf salad some time and see what they have to offer during their lunch buffet to see how they measure up to Burma Superstar, but I like that they have all the variety and similar quality without the hype, lines, and higher prices.
3.5 stars

I think this is the only Burmese and Thai restaurant I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen Burmese restaurants and Thai restaurants, but never both together.
A and I walked by this restaurant one day and decided we’d put it on our list of places to try. We finally went this past weekend after a failed attempt to go to Burma Superstar. Why is there always such a long line there? It’s not THAT great.
Anyway, it was pretty full inside, but we were seated right away and given menus as well as glasses of water. After that though, I think we waited a good 25 minutes before someone came to take our drink orders and then another 10 minutes before anyone came to take our food order. There was the one guy who was walking around to all the tables schmoozing. Everyone who works there is super duper nice and really friendly, but it just took forever and a half for them to come take our order.
After the initial wait though, we got our food relatively quickly. We ordered the Burmese Roti with Potato Curry, Pad Thai, Rainbow Salad, and Chicken Satay. The roti was just okay. The Pad Thai wasn’t bad. I really liked the Rainbow Salad. The Chicken Satay was pretty good. My chicken was a little bit chewy.
Everyone seems to say the Tea Leaf Salad is good. I might go back and try it. I liked the food, but the initial lag in service is what is bringing down my review. Yes, I’d try it again to see if the service improves.

First time I’ve had Burmese food and it really seemed like a 75%/25% fusion blend of Thai/​Indian tastes. Included was a bunch of average food for their weekend lunch buffet and I don’t think they restocked anything while I was there. Some of their items included: lemongrass coconut chicken curry, yellow chicken curry, beef curry (dry), their signature tea leaf salad, tom yum soup, and a fried tofu/​eggplant mixture.
You will definitely get your money’s worth for $ 9.95 and the service here is great for a buffet. The one thing that I really enjoyed and I had to get a few servings of was their tea leaf salad. I don’t know if it qualifies as Burmese but it definitely had some substance to it with some interesting tea leaf flavors.

Had the lunch buffet. Not a huge selection, but quality over quantity. The pumpkin pork and curry chicken were very good. All you can eat Pad Thai?! I am SO there! Add some yummy chicken yellow curry and tom yum soup and you’ve got an awesome buffet!
And at $ 9.95, it’s worth it. With a plate costing anywhere from 8 – 15 dollars, this isn’t a bad deal at all, and it’s at least worth trying.
The service was great. Kept the water glass filled and took away the empty plates promptly. We were also asked more than once if everything was okay.
The only complaint I have is perhaps installing a sneeze guard? While I was getting food I had the urge to sneeze, but noticed there was nothing covering the food. I held it, but sometimes you just can’t. Who knows what else can fall into the food trays?
All in all, it’s worth checking out.

It’s ok for Burmese, but to me I felt it was too salty. So, the tea leaf salad was good and I liked the fried garlic pieces. The samusa soup was tasty, but there were too many pieces of onions in it and I left tasting onion even though I tried my best to get them out of the soup. The rest of the dishes (can’t even remember their names) were lacking. I ordered the spicy tomato noodles with chicken and the chicken was weird tasting and way too salty to eat. We also had another noodle dish that was good, but it was slightly between cold and lukewarm cold.
Service was great and they kept filling up my water, which I kept drinking because I felt it was too salty. I think we would have been better off ordering some Thai dishes. Besides the salad, there weren’t any veggies.

Was walking in Clement with my cousin looking for Thai/​Chinese food. When I hit this Restaurant. $ 9.95 for Lunch Buffet? Why Not…
Soon as I got in. My whole perspective of this Restaurant Changed …
One Lady who made it a point to mingle with Guest how things are going. Spoke with her and felt the Warm Authentic Burmese Hospitality thats a Big PLUS !!! She’s the reason why I kept on coming back here. (Didn’t realized she’s the Owner after my second Visit) :)))
Prefer the Menu than the Buffet. Second time I came. Had theBurmese Roti Palata. This Appetizer just BLEW me away… The BEST …
4^th visit Got friends from Singapore and brought them here too…
I was told by my Singaporean friends that this Tea Leaf Salad (Lap Pat Thut) is Legendary. Sandra who happens to be the Owner mixed this Gorgeous Salad to my friends Liking…
In a span of 1 month. I’ve to this restaurant more than 5 times.
If you want warm friendly Stuff? Nice Décor? Great Food? go for the Dinner. You”ll experience a very Warm Burmese Hospitality !!!
To Sandra. Kudos…

3.5 stars.
My friend and I visited Pagan for the $ 9.95 lunch buffet (11am-​3pm). $ 9.95 to eat your heart out? What a deal!
I have been to one of these lunch buffets before (Amisha on Irving) and the choices weren’t great. Pagan definitely has a better lunch buffet.
The most memorable items were the fried tofu, squash, and onion, different Burmese and Thai curries, tea leaf salad, pad thai, tom yum soup. I never really liked tea leaf salad as kid when my grandmother made it because of the beans. At Pagan, I sucked it up and just set the beans aside. The fried onion was so good but so unhealthy! The pad thai was not very fresh and the noodles tasted a little rubbery. Tom yum soup was a bit sour.
The service was great — the waitresses were very friendly and checked up on us very often and refilled our water often.
I have been to the Pagan on 33^rd and Clement so I know their non-​buffet items are probably a lot better, but at $ 9.95, I’m not going to complain. In fact, I’ll probably be back soon.

Everything at Pagan was delicious! Four of us ordered tea leaf salad, roti, mild coconut curry noodles with chicken and catfish noodle soup. I have been to Pagan’s sister restaurant on the other end of Clement and liked it, but don’t remember enjoying the food as much as I did this time.
Tea leaf salad was crunchy and tasty. The roti comes with giant pieces of curry chicken and the doughy roti itself is delicious! I love the multitude of ingredients and textures used in Burmese cuisine. The tender noodles are topped with crunchy what-​tastes-​like toasted chickpeas, and tiny fried noodles. The taste is mild but complex, and the chicken pieces are actually tender, a huge difference from Thai dishes where chicken tends to be over cooked and rubbery.
The catfish soup was so flavorful: at times it reminded me of Thai tom yum soup with that sweet and sour combination, but it’s really more complex than that. It has a hint of Indian spices as well.
All of us enjoyed our dishes very much, and the restaurant was spacious and not crowded which allowed us to sit comfortably for hours to chat and take our time with our dinner.
The price is very reasonable: four dishes, two beers, all together $ 46 before tips.

All the suckas down the street can wait in their hour line in the cold Inner Richmond weather for their blown-​up SuperStar; I’ll be instantly seated in this cozy Burmese instead. (And I’ll get to hear live music on the weekends too.)
The food was fresh and tasty, and my whole party liked every dish. The tea salad was tasty and featured homemade fermented tea purée along with other texture-​y morsels. We also got the samosa soup, pumpkin curry shrimp, lamb curry, and an eggplant dish. I liked the steamed rice over the coconut rice. Though none of the Burmese restaurants I’ve been to in the US have entirely similar food to what I ate in Myanmar, this place will nonetheless see my friends and I again.

I do find this place decent. We endured the Shan Kaukswer, Curry Beef Lunch special, and a shrimp dish I can’t name. We also had a mango with coconut rice for dessert.
There is one characteristic of Burmese food that really defines the culinary aspects of the culture: heavy on the spice. A crisscross of Thai, Indian, and Vietnamese cuisine mashed into a taste all of its own. I did enjoy my lunch, as each of the flavors of the dishes spoke in its own language. I do think some of it did get lost in translation though.
By no means have I had enough Burmese food to give this place a proper rating. My stomach, though, had it’s own assessment of what it heard: the brown note.

4 stars for the food and 5 stars for the service =)
Me and my friend love burmese food and I’m usually picky that if the resto has samosa salad or samosa soup then I’m in: D Their samosa soup was delicious and hot. 5 stars for the service coz me and my friend hoped from one table to another and almost we switched tables more than thrice lol. they did not fuss and always smiled and accepted for the change in tables.
Nice place, good food & service.

With a slew of Burmese restaurants under my belt, I was looking forward to trying this new location of Pagan. The restaurant was not packed and we were seated promptly. The place is huge and I remember eating here when it use to be Eva’s Hawaiian café.
Anyways, I had ordered the paratha which is fried flatbread, rainbow salad which their version has about 12 ingredients and a curry chicken noodle dish. It took awhile and I mean a long while before I got my food. Everyone else in the restaurant was looking around and wondering where their food was as well. It was hard to call a server because they were always busy doing something else but obviously, they couldn’t check up on anyone’s food.
Moving on, our food began to arrive. The paratha was hard and tasted burnt. It was not really flaky and had no taste whatsoever. It tasted like flour and water and that’s it. The curry chicken noodle dish was boring and I have had better similar dishes. The rainbow salad was the biggest disappointment. It looked good but where was the flavors? Everything just didn’t add up. The rainbow salad was just boring and I totally forgot about it. I love Burmese food and in fact, it’s my favorite cuisine but Pagan just left a funky taste in my mouth.

We walked by this place on the way to a grocery store and there was no one in there so I thought it was probably a bad sign. Half an hour later we walked by again and there were people at a few tables so we decided to give it a try.
It’s very spacious inside, with very minimal decoration. It looks like it would be kids friendly and probably good for big groups too. Waiters were very friendly but service was a little too slow. By the time we ordered our food there were about 18 people in the restaurant, with only 2 waiters trying to take order and bring out food and clean the table I think they should consider getting additional help in the future.
We decided to order a catfish noodle soup and a pumpkin shrimp stew and a coconut rice. I really liked the noodle at the beginning but after a few minutes I noticed I was getting really thirsty (and usually that’s indication of MSG as I rarely need to drink water during meals) so I don’t think I would ever order that again. The pumpkin shrimp stew with coconut rice was really good. I loved the texture of the cooked pumpkin and it went really well with the coconut flavor. Shrimp was good too.
I will definitely return to try their dessert and a few other items on the menu. Hope they start using less MSG too.

3.5 stars. We didn’t really know what to eat but it was freezing so a quick decision had to be made. Pizza? Chinese? Burmese? The wait at Burma Superstar would’ve been too long and I didn’t remember where Mandalay was. When we tried to look it up on an iPhone, it came up with Mandalay, Myanmar. We tried to get driving directions there. Didn’t work.
As we drove by Good Luck Dim Sum, we saw Pagan and the grand opening sign and decided to go for it. The place looked new and clean and we were seated right away.
We went with the rainbow salad, chicken curry noodle and Burmese style curry with chicken. I was kind of worried we’d end up with 2 very similar dishes but they were different. The chicken curry noodle was flavorful but in a mild way and had sort of an egg salad feel. Sounds weird but it was nice. The Burmese style curry was darker and slightly spicy with a lot of really tender chicken and potatoes. The rainbow salad was fine but not as good as at Mandalay so I wouldn’t get that again. Overall, the portions were large and the food tasty.
As other reviewers have mentioned, service can be off. I am giving them some slack though since they just opened and the servers were really nice. I’d come back to try other things like the tea leaf salad and pumpkin stews.

After having tried Burma Superstar and B*Star, I am glad to have tried Pagan.
Service was good, and food was even better.
In order of favorite to least favorite
Moo Hin Nga (Cat Fish Noodle Soup)
Fish chowder with rice noodle, ground catfish, onion, garlic, and cilantro
Tea Leaf Salad (Lap Pat Thut)
Imported Burmese tea leaves, mixed nuts, fried garlic, sesame seed, peanuts, grounded shrimps and dressing
and a chicken noodle curry
Fish chowder was good. Perfect with the rice noodles to give it some texture. Tea leaf salad tasted better than the one at Burma Superstar. Good texture and flavord.
Least fave was chicken noodle curry. Could have done without it. Pretty filling dish. Even better if it had potatoes, but like I said, I could do without it.
Not sure what you would like if you were Burmese. One person I know really likes it and one person said it didn’t live up to their standards based on home-​cooked Burmese food.
Not a bad deal. About $ 26 before tip for two of us. :)
Service and the yummy tea leaf salad and fish chowder make up for the chicken noodle curry. And we were really full, too, so good portion sizes. Therefore, Pagan gets 5 stars!

This Pagan Restaurant (there is another farther west on Clement) has a nice and clean, stylish décor, which fits a bit into the idea of the place that is named after.
Pagan, or Bagan, Myanmar (formerly Burma) is an ancient sacred site of majestic temples and pagaodas, built 1000 years ago, equal to Ankgor in Cambodia in buddhist archealogical richness and splendor.
The restaurant doesn’t have the rich, ornate stylings of its namesake’s architecture, but rather a cleaner, San Francisco modern stylishness to it.
It is pleasing to the eye at first entrance.
However, the food is average at best. It has many standards of Burmese style dishes, but the flavors and dishes were not close to spectacular, more on the average and seems to be missing something range. The service, albeit that this place may still be working out the kinks, was a bit disorganized and not running in a confident or reassuring manner. You would think with another successful Pagan restaurant already in action, they would have figured it out better.
If you are tired of waiting on Burma Superstar up the street, you might come here and find similar dishes, but perhaps not the same quality of taste, in my opinion. (I personally thought Burma Superstar was overrated, cramped, not worthy of the outrageous waits, and grossly over-​reviewed!). On the other hand, if you prefer better ambiance to better taste and without waiting, this could be a good alternative for you. Or you can drive toward the setting sun on Clement and try their original location.

3.5 stars.
I had not planned to eat here, but I discovered the previous restaurant was no longer here. I stopped outside and glanced at the menu then stuck my head against the glass to peer inside. The interior is quite nice. Curiously, I walked in for a late afternoon lunch.
I didn’t realize the restaurant closes for lunch at 3:30 in the afternoon until I had finished my meal and walked out the door. It was about 3:20 when I walked in, and at no time did I feel rushed to finish my food and exit the restaurant. Unlike many of the reviews I read after my visit the service I received was excellent.
Seated promptly I was given ample time to survey the menu and make my selections. There were two other tables occupied when I visited. The waitress took my drink order, and as she was getting my drink (
) another waiter came out and asked if I was ready to order. I’m still quite the novice when it comes to ordering Burmese cuisine so I tried ordering things with ingredients familiar to me. I selected the Vegetarian Crispy Rolls and a mild curry chicken noodle dish called Nan Gyi Dok.
The food was ready with only a short wait. The Vegetarian Crispy Rolls came served with a sweet and sour chile and plum sauce (
). These are similar to deep fried egg rolls like you’d find at a Chinese restaurant, but they managed to eliminate the taste of the hot oil quite well. The filling is of silver noodle threads, dried mushrooms, cabbage and carrot (
). Fried foods are usually delicious. These were no exception as I polished off all four rolls.
The Nan Gyi Dok came out as I was finishing off the veggie rolls. All the ingredients (soft rice noodles, curry seasoned chicken cubes, fried strips of battered onion, hard boiled egg slices, raw white onion, cilantro, a very fine pea powder and chile flakes) are presented on their own on the square, white platter (
). The waiter offered to mix it for me at the table, but I asked that I do it since I wanted to take a photo of the food. Although I did it in more of a clumsy fashion I did manage to mix all the ingredients together intentionally leaving the sliced egg unmixed (
). I’m still not certain why I did that.
The taste wasn’t exactly what I had imagined. The rice noodles were thicker than Vietnamese rice noodles, more like a spaghetti noodle but made of rice. The fried onion was crispy and airy and had very little onion taste. The cubes of chicken dark meat had only a hint of curry flavor. When they advertised this as a mild curry they weren’t kidding. The pea powder gave the curry sauce a gritty texture. If not for the chile flakes and the wedge of lime it would have been quite a bland dish.
I found the menu quite interesting though and I’m willing to come back and try some other dishes. The restaurant reopens at 5 PM for the dinner crowd.