For nearly 20 years, Thein Aung owned and operated a sushi stand inside a Stop & Shop in New Jersey. At one point, he also ran another restaurant in a Fort Lee strip mall called Star Sushi and Cuisine, which obviously also sold sushi.
But Aung grew up in Yangon, Myanmar, and told Hell Gate that he identifies as Burmese-Chinese, so for his first restaurant here in the big city, he decided to get back to his family's roots. Crucially, Aung enlisted his wife Aye Khine—previously a "home cook," he said, "but everybody loves her food"—to be the chef, and together they opened Burmese Harp in deep Bay Ridge, on Fourth Avenue right near the 86th Street R train stop.
