Mandalay magic

I've been flexing my new Amnesty International credit card and eating my way around the human-rights black spots of the world. Is there a North Korean restaurant in London? Two of the other evils on George Bush's axis regularly get my custom. Persian restaurants are handy for all those New Year dieters, with their emphasis on grilled meats and salads but usually crappy wine lists. Iraq has Baghdad on Westbourne Grove. Iran is well represented all over town - Mohsen on Warwick Road is my favourite and has the added bonus of having no alcohol for sale, giving it max January appeal.

In this spirit I went for lunch at London's only Burmese restaurant. The Burmese military junta kept their democratically elected leader under house arrest until last summer. The owners of Mandalay left Burma 30 years ago, and gave a respectful nod to my Amnesty credit card.

Most parsimonious foodies know the road to Mandalay is a grubbylooking stretch of the Edgware Road. The walls are covered in glowing reviews - internationally it's probably better known than the Ivy. An American sitting next to me said the place came highly recommended by friends in Fresno. She then proceeded to bitch about the appalling standards of service in this country.

The service at Mandalay, I should add, is attentive to the point of neurosis - every dish and ingredient is meticulously explained. Burmese food needs explaining, though, and the owners recommend good teamings of dishes and list ingredients with pride. The menu is a happy mix of Asian flavours --lemongrass, shrimp paste, tamarind, ginger, soy and light products such as rice flour, noodles and vegetable oils, combined with the less dense but still aromatic flavours of India.

They don't use ghee, which for anyone feeling a bit porky in 2003 is a godsend. So next time you find yourself arguing over whether to go for a Chinese, Indian or Thai, Burmese is the perfect compromise.

I chose a fritter of leafy greens made with a batter of rice, wheat and gram flours, with ginger, turmeric and spinach - the rice flour made it like a bhaji lite. The papaya and cucumber salad was crunchy and fresh, with a cleansing zingy buzz. The extremely unripe papaya has a taste and texture more like a mild horseradish than a fruit. Though '12-Ingredient Soup' sounded mysterious, it was some hefty prawns in a coconutty broth with lots of vegetables. I'll ask for it without the egg next time, even though the egg was poached perfectly.

Twice-cooked fish curry - fresh-water tilapia in a rich tomato sauce enriched with turmeric, ginger, garlic and fish sauce - hit my tastebuds squarely in the middle of the Indian sub-continent and the South China Sea.

Mandalay is more simple cafe than restaurant, the food is great and the house wine is under £8 a bottle. As the embarrassment of eating alone tends to rise with the swankery of the interior, I was happy on my tod, though the American found this hard to believe and persisted in talking to me throughout lunch.