Mandalay

You get what you ask for here. “Spicy means spicy,” says Mandalay owner Kyaw “Joe” Myint.

Sure enough, the fried jasmine rice mixed with shrimp and sour mustard greens I request “spicy” is packed with dynamite in the form of roasted Thai red chiles. Ground before it goes into the dish, the TNT is invisible to the eye. But the tongue immediately detects a bonfire, which hotheads will appreciate.

Launched by Myint’s parents in 2000, Mandalay shuttered in 2021 and reopened nine months later, with delivery and takeout. Recently, the dining room reopened with limited hours (11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday for lunch and 5 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday for dinner). “I don’t have the staff” to do more, says Myint, who also halved the number of seats in the bare-bones restaurant to 40.