Palata is a furl of the tongue away from Indian paratha, but closer in texture to Malaysian roti canai. The way Mr. Thway learned to make it — from a trishaw driver in his hometown, Hinthada, on the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar — the dough is swung up and slapped down repeatedly until it can’t be stretched any thinner. He abstains from butter, touching the dough with just the oil needed to keep it from clinging to his hands.

If he had time, he would pull it into a long cord, wind it into a ball and punch it flat, to multiply the layers within. (In Burmese, its other name is htut thayar, or hundred layers.) But in Queens the crowds are closing in, so he simply folds the dough from four sides into a rough square before throwing it on the griddle.

It is enough. The palata is light, crispy and chewy at once; I carried one home by subway, and it arrived an hour later still soft and supple, without a hint of stiffening. It may come plain, for dipping into a dusky red chicken curry that leans toward India, Myanmar’s neighbor across the Bay of Bengal; or stuffed with minced chicken breast cooked in paprika oil and a masala that Mr. Thway imports from Myanmar, with the warmth of cumin pitched against cardamom’s faint menthol kiss.

His other specialty is ohno kaukswe, a soup that is distant kin to Thai kao soy. It is subtle and deep, the broth stained sunrise orange, given a nice murk of fish sauce and thickened with coconut milk and chickpea flour that is toasted until it yields a whiff of earth. Noodles curl under a crowd of cilantro, onion, hard-boiled egg, lime for squeezing and, if you permit (Mr. Thway always asks first), red-black chile, ready to swarm.