Entry No. 113 — the Denver file — filed under: food
Urban Burma
Tucked in a corner of the Mango House — a shared food hall built for resettled refugees on East Colfax — Urban Burma is Colorado's first and essentially only Burmese restaurant. Brothers Siri and Martin Tan opened it in 2019 to cook for Aurora's large, mostly invisible Burmese community, and the menu hits dishes you literally can't get elsewhere in the metro: tea-leaf salad with fermented leaves, fried peanuts and lentils; nan gyi dok noodles; beef curry; and, when it's on, mohinga, the catfish-noodle soup that's Myanmar's national dish. It's not Thai-adjacent and it's not Indian — it's its own thing, and most of Denver has never tasted it.
The move: Go hungry, split the tea-leaf salad and a curry plus noodles, and wander the rest of the Mango House food hall afterward — a cheap, genuinely novel food adventure where you're both trying a cuisine for the first time.
📍 Before you go The big catch is the door: the Colfax-facing front entrance is locked, so head around to the south/back side off Galena Street, where there's also free parking — signs literally read "Enter South Side Only." Once inside, Mango House works like a communal potluck: order at the Urban Burma counter and your food arrives at shared tables you grab anywhere in the hall. That setup makes pairing easy — the same room holds Ethiopian, Syrian, Nepali and Sudanese refugee-run stalls, so split a tea-leaf salad here and graze elsewhere. Best as a weekday lunch or early dinner; hours shift, and mohinga is an occasional special, so ask ahead.
- 📍 Aurora (East Colfax corridor)
- 💸 $$
- ⚡ Up for anything
- 🌗 Indoors
Where: Inside Mango House food hall, 10180 E Colfax Ave, Aurora, CO 80010 — tucked in a corner of the hall
Hours: Roughly Mon-Sat 11am-8pm, Sun 11am-6pm per listings; mohinga is an occasional special, not always on the menu. Confirm hours and ask about mohinga before going.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Further reading: 303magazine.com · Axios · Official site · Yelp
last checked: 2026-06-07