Finding a parking spot on a Friday night in Chinatown is only slightly less challenging than driving the Indianapolis 500. Slither, lurch, reserve, race, brake, got it. Which is how we happen to be loping along down Henry, the street of 1,001 garbage cans…Henry below Canal, a shabby artery of tenements and rubble…gloomy, shut away. And then a burst of light. A tiny matchbox storefront catches the eye. Swags of polyester lace. An enthusiasm of scarlet fabric roses. Exactly six tables. Precisely twenty chairs. The Rangoon Burmese Kitchen. Spirit of Marco Polo. We have stumbled on a new cuisine. First in New York. First in America, we're told.

          We're late for dinner in Chinatown, but how can we pass this by? Must linger for just a sampling: "Fish soup, $2", the wall listing says in English. (The same twelve items are given in Burmese and Chinese too, we are assured. No condescension to Caucasians here.) One taste -- rockets explode. What a heady brew: bits of fish and swirls of soft noodles. Haunting strains of Thai fish sauce in a powder of green leaf coriander and something else…what can it be? Eager to please, the waiter brings a stalk of something from the kitchen. "We buy it in the Thai market," he confides. I bite into it…lemongrass. Enchanted, we vow to return.

          Ten days later. It was no mirage. There is the square of light, the roses, the cubbyhole of Formica with mock skylights of mock stained glass, friendly smiles, not a customer in sight. Half our party is lost, finally attracting an escort of transit cops: "Burmese restaurant, you say? We'll show you the way." Police-van signals flash. "You toined the wrong way," the loudspeaker booms. United at last, toting our wine, five of us are instantly seduced by the gently spicing and eager innocence of the Rangoon Burmese Kitchen.

          There are thousand-layer pancakes -- paper-thin dough rolled, folded, smashed flat, and crisp-fried, then served with small bowls of curry. And delicious keema -- tissue-paper pancakes stuffed with bits and pieces of meat in a spicy musk, crisp-fried to order, the encore more spectacular than the first performance.

          Taste the curries with rice. Small chunks of pork and fatback studded with pods of cardamom.

          "Camphor," someone observes.

          "Cedar closet," another muses.

          "I love it." All five agree. Somewhat over-braised chicken is steeped in strong but not peppery Indian spices (garam masala dominates, the waiter explains, bringing a jar from the kitchen). "There is no Burmese store," he tells us, "so we shop at the Thai and Indian markets." The beef curry involves memories of Dinty Moore -- canned-stew desperation in college days, but the fish in moist nubbins, artfully spiced with stray barbs of Sichuan pepper, is the best curry of all. Noodle dishes are lukewarm and full of surprises -- tomato, and coconut sweet against garlic savor. Unredeemable fire-eaters can heat things up with a shake of hot pepper and risk numbing tongues to the fine play of garlic and cinnamon, clove, cumin, and turmeric in counterpoint to coriander and coconut.

          Tonight's fish soup is not the dizzying transcendence of that first night. Not hot enough (in temperature) and less fiercely coriandered. But there is a sweetly aromatic coconut noodle soup that provokes such uninhibited moans from the assembled sensualists that a quartet of Burmese now claiming the front table stare, glare, and giggle. Even the desserts -- a moist crumble of coconut cake and a bizarre two-layered coconut jelly of supreme bounceablility -- have their fans. And no item costs more that $2.50.

          Patrick Wong, the waiter, scoots back and forth to the kitchen, toting pancakes crisped to order. "I spoiled one," he apologizes. "I'm doing it over." Burmese-born Patrick learned his English at Hunter, has two years more to go at Baruch College. Patrick? Yes. "The nuns gave me that name." The cook is Kevin Chin. Those are his paintings for sale on the wall. These two are the eager entrepreneurs of the Rangoon Burmese Kitchen, open two months. Word is just reaching United Nations circles, Patrick reports. What do we think of the prices? I look at the bill. Five of us are blessed out on $26.50 plus tip. What shall I say? "I think New Yorkers will be pleased with the prices."

          Now I know why the great explorers risked sailing off the flat edge of the world to find the Spice Islands. Dare I tell? What will happen when the world discovers Rangoon Burmese Kitchen with its twenty chairs and its eager amateur crew? If the hungry hordes are as sweet and gentle as Patrick and Kevin, there is hope.

33 Henry Street