I was five years old when my family fled Myanmar. My father was a freedom fighter, and we spent years in refugee camps along the border before my mother sent me to school in Thailand so I could have a future. Food was the thread that carried me through all of it: the Knyaw dishes of home, the flavors I grew up with in Thailand, and later the community I found here in St. Paul. Mandalay Kitchen is my way of bringing those pieces together at one table, and sharing them with you.

​

Mandalay Kitchen is named after the city of Mandalay in Upper Burma, a melting pot of cultures that symbolizes Chef Chris Tunbaw's journey through the cuisines of Myanmar and Thailand. Chef Chris Tunbaw is an ethnic Knyaw (Karen) who cooks to bring people together. After immigrating to St. Paul in the late 1990s, food became the way he built community across cultures.