Highly Anticipated NYC Burmese Restaurant Rangoon Opens For Three Nights This Week

One of NYC’s most highly anticipated new restaurants is opening up to the public for a three-night-only stint with a limited menu starting tomorrow. Rangoon, which grew out of chef and owner Myo Moe’s Bushwick pop-up focused on Burmese food, will offer a smaller version of the full menu to diners at the Crown Heights restaurant located at 500 Prospect Place, at Classon Avenue, from February 13 through February 15.

The restaurant isn’t taking any reservations, and will only be open for dinner on those nights between 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., Moe tells Eater. For this limited engagement, Moe is only opening up the front portion of the restaurant, which seats 13.

Moe frequently switched up her menu at her Bushwick pop-up, which Eater critic Robert Sietsema wrote was a major “reason to visit her temporary establishment again and again.” Threads of those preparations live on in the tasting menu in dishes like the spicy pork with rice noodles, black bean sauce, and pickled mustard; the traditional Burmese fish soup Mohinga served with thin rice noodles, lotus root, egg, and shallot fritters; and a cinnamon chicken preparation with a coconut sauce, and roasted onion and garlic.

Based on the response to her limited menu, Moe might open up the Crown Heights space for more such dinners next week. Rangoon was slated to open last fall, but Moe has been waiting on liquor license approval for the restaurant, and is hopeful that the restaurant will fully open early next month.

Moe started her pop-up Rangoon NoodleLab toward the end of 2015 at Ridgewood, Queens coffee shop 1080 Brew. About six months later, she moved her Burmese food operation to erstwhile Bushwick beer and wine bar the Bodega (which is now a cocktail bar called Idlewild). Moe quickly developed a solid following for her noodle dishes, salads, and stir fries, all inspired by food from Myanmar, where Moe grew up.

When Upper East Side Burmese restaurant Cafe Mingala closed after more than 20 years, in 2016, Moe’s pop-up became all the more vital as one of the few places in NYC serving Burmese food. Now Moe will bring Burmese food back into the spotlight in NYC with Rangoon.