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The haunting By L.E. Leonele_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com CHEAP EATS It's starting to be funny, how many different places in the same place (3406 18th Street, at Mission) I have sat in, at the counter, and chowed down on burgers or noodles. If I were dead, I might haunt that address. As it is, it haunts me. Chris, Lee. Or Lee and then Chris. Yamo Thai Kitchen. Then Yamo Hipster Vegetarian, the dark ages, which didn't last long. And now it's Burmese food. It's still called Yamo, still just a counter, still fast, furious, and cheap cheap cheap. Only now when you see me there I'll look more like a lady, almost, or a ghost. And I'll be laughing my ass off because, like I said, it's starting to be funny. Why can't this great location hold down a restaurant? Too small of a hole-in-the-wall? Too high-rent of a neighborhood? I don't know, maybe you can get away with being the smallest restaurant in the world if you're Jodie, in the East Bay, or Art's in the Sunset. Or if you crank out slices of pizza or donuts or something cheaper and easier to crank than made-to-order Thai or Burmese food, or even I suppose hamburgers and homemade potato chips. I don't know. All I can say is, I wish the new owners the best of luck, and I intend to back up my warmest wishes with cold, hard five-twenty-fives as often as possible, because, duh, this is my new favorite Burmese restaurant. Except for appetizers, which even the Loch Ness monster could afford (that's an inside riddle for fellow South Park fans), everything on the menu is $5.25! Tea leaf salad, $5.25. Mango chicken, $5.25. Curry prawns, $5.25. To put $5.25 into perspective, $5.25 is 60 cents cheaper than a regular meat burrito at Pancho Villa these days. For Burmese food! Now, I'm not a vibrator reviewer, but me and a good girlfriend of mine, and her boyfriend, had been browsing around in Good Vibrations around the corner on Valencia, which is the only reason I know how much a Pancho Villa burrito goes for, by the way. Bear with me: It's just that I wouldn't want anyone to think that I, Lady Lord Exister, chicken farmer, would be caught dead actually patronizing Pancho Villa, oh horror of horrors, embarrassment of embarrassments. No, but you can only look at dildos for so long, you know, if you're a lady or a wannabe, before you start to get, well, kinda hungry. In many cases, for a burrito. So my friend, whose name naturally I won't say, not even if you tie me up and tickle me, she decides that she has to pick up a burrito on their way to BART, and it has to be from Pancho Villa. First I was going to ditch them, then I said I'd wait outside, and then, what the hell, I pulled my hat down low over my eyes, and I slinked in behind them. That's how I know how much a Pancho Villa burrito goes for: five-eighty-fucking-five. My friends offered to buy one for me. "No thanks," I said. I saw them off into the BART station, and then, feeling dirty, degraded, and disturbed, I started walking up Mission Street. Yeah, I was hungry, but really what I needed was change for a twenty, so I could get on a bus. And when I got to 18th and saw good old brand-new Yamo there, it all kind of came together for me. Fish chowder noodle soup ($5.25) is a big bowl of rice noodles with shredded fish, green onions, and cilantro, and piled up in the middle with these crispy fried "yellow bean" cake thingies, which I think are split peas. It was pretty good, but the fish was shredded almost out of existence, and the other soup, in retrospect, sounds a lot better: coconut noodle soup with chickens, onion, and cilantro ($5.25). The place seems a little somewhat cleaner than it used to be, but what are you gonna do? You can't have everything. There are these weird, huge cutouts high on the back wall but I couldn't figure out what they were supposed to be. Cookies? And if so, why? To give me one more thing to laugh about? (I love the questions!) And, speaking of riddles, my favorite touch, on the back of the menu: a circle with a big bold question mark in it, and four wraparound words saying, mysteriously, "FOR THE CURIOUS ONE." *
Mon.–Thurs., 10:30 a.m.–9:30 p.m.; Fri.–Sat., 10:30 a.m.–10 p.m. 3406 18th St., SF (415) 553-8911 Takeout available No alcohol Cash only
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