Top Southeast Asian Restaurant in Berkeley
Saigon Express
2045 Kala Bagai Wy, Berkeley, CA 94704, United States
I visited this restaurant because of its convenient location, and no one stayed in line at that particular time. I am not a regular eater of pho soup, but this time I decided to eat here. My reaction to this food is not very impressive because there is not really much to eat for the price I paid, about $18 dollars together with tax and tip. Furthermore, I wish they could add something else extra for that price, just like Mexican restaurants do(nachos, salsa and some veggies). Unfortunately, after this restaurant, I had to go to another place and buy a humburger so that I would not be hungry and be able to last till dinner. There were about eight people inside. Overall, the experience was acceptable.
Tuk Tuk Thai
2468 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94704, United States
2 and 1/2 stars.I hate to give any Thai restaurant a negative review. I love the flavors and spices of Thailand, I really do. This place does a few things right; The flavor profiles of the curries. The savory smoked duck.Where this restaurant falls short is in two large categories. Size/price ratio and menu description inaccuracy. The portions here are disappointingly small and prices higher than competitors. This may be due to location, but still, it is noticeable. A larger flaw is not getting what you thought you ordered. I ordered a dish with tofu instead of meat. The menu listed the vegetables that accompanied this particular choice, which led to my decision. No broccoli. A very important consideration for me since I have trouble digesting this vegetable and frankly, I just dont like it. Broccoli is a cheap filler vegetable. I learned in chef school that it communicates to the customer that the restaurant cuts corners. Broccoli is cheap, abundant, and has a long shelf life. It has no place in fine dining. I THOUGHT I was avoiding it when I made my selection. Uh, no. I got 5 tiny cubes of tofu and a ton of broccoli. The waiter, when summoned, told me that it was always added when the customer ordered the dish with tofu. He didnt explain the lack of tofu.So my already smallish selection was made even smaller when I picked out the offending vegetable. I felt it was a bit unfair since this arbitrary substitution was not indicated on the menu. I had no warning, and was offered no replacement. I will not be returning, which is a shame since my husband loved the house smoked duck.
Le Pho Vietnamese Restaurant
2501 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley, CA 94702, United States
The people are really friendly and I wanted to like the food, but that was not to be. I only ordered the pho, but if that is any indication, this restaurant needs to fix its cooking or it will die. I hope the manager or owner is reading this and will take action. The pho broth could not in any way be called a beef broth. It looked more like chicken, though weak even for that. The flavor was utterly bland, and lacking the traditional pho flavors of burnt onion, burnt ginger, anise, clove, and good fish sauce, not to mention any hint of beef.Its not that hard to prepare. Boil beef bones, preferably marrow bones, for a couple of days or in a pressure cooker for half a day, add the ingredients described above except for the fish sauce, cook an hour or two more, get rid of the fat, strain, and you have the broth, ready for fish sauce to be added to get just the right salt balance and the final secret weapon of flavor. Wild fennel is sprouting up around here all over the place now, and the fresh new greens add wonderful flavor for savvy cooks who want to reap the seasonal rewards nature offers up gratis.Serve with plenty of fresh basil, cilantro, sliced onion and green onion, and sliced green fresh hot peppers for the heat lovers (traditionally, bean sprouts are served with pho too, but I think they detract from the flavor and so I feed them to my dogs, who are very appreciative). So easy, really. Most places around here make nice pho broths (check out, among many others, Phuong Nam, Mekong, and Le Cheval, all in Oakland) but Le Pho needs to learn.
Mint Leaf
2865 Seventh St, Berkeley, CA 94710, United States
I love Mint Leaf!What the food is like:The pho is good. Flavorful enough to not be boring, and plain enough that it is comfortable to eat. I like to get the special rare beef pho.The shaking beef plate might be my favorite when I want to be spoiled. Its basically a plate of big chunks of well-flavored meat (garlic, onion, salt, probably other flavors too). Love the sizzling sound it makes while it is served.The spring rolls are all really lovely, too. They have a lot of crispy textures stuffed into them.Most of the dishes are very flavorful. Some of them are also rich.Online ordering: I appreciate that Mint Leaf recently incorporated the ability to use Online Ordering through GrubHub and other platforms. I love being able to schedule a pick-up time. I used to order via telephone and would ask for extra jalapeños on the side, and they would sometimes be forgotten (totally okay!). Now that I am ordering online, though, theres a printed receipt that shows the request for extra jalapeños. It seems like this has been making it easier for the staff to ensure order quality. The person who is usually behind the counter has been kind enough to double-check that the jalapeños are there when they see the receipt, without me even having to ask.Thank you, Mint Leaf!
Ph K & K
2533 Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, CA 94704, United States
Hands down, the worst Vietnamese restaurant I have ever eaten at. Here are the reasons why:1) The Vietnamese fish sauce is arguably the most important part of Vietnamese cuisine. Here, its more like fish sauce and sugar, diluted with water. There are no chili, lime or garlic taste in it whatsoever.2) Food lacks flavor - I had the rice with lemongrass pork chop. The pork chop lacked any flavour whatsoever. It definitely has not been marinated and the taste of chili and lemongrass was lacking. We also had the Pho - the soup was too sweet and it wasnt made from bone broth (more like flavour packs). They also provide too little herbs (i.e. Thai basil). Lastly, the pho noodle is also not the correct type of noodle.3) The accompanying salad consisted of Spinach, parseley and dill - three ingredients which made absolutely no sense in a Vietnamese dish. On its own, the salad would have been average, but altogether it was just confusing.4) I hereby dedicate an entire point to the papaya salad - the papaya was cut too thick so it stopped being crunchy and started to become slightly chewy - an adjective you never want to use on a salad. Again, the herbs was lacking, and the fish sauce was bad.However, it is not a total disaster - whilst the pork chop lacked flavour, it tasted fresh and not dry. The same with the beef in the Pho - the meat had a good texture to it. The service was good - we were given a big glass of water soon after we sat down and the food arrived within 10 minutes.Nonetheless, it was the worst Vietnamese meal I have ever had. Despite a lack of Vietnamese restaurants in Berkeley, I would not be returning. After returning home, I regret finishing the food. My very-Asian body feels violated by the food, and I am currently eating two whole Romaine Hearts in an effort to expel the food from my body in my next toilet break.
Lucky House Thai Cuisine
2140 University Ave, Berkeley, CA 94704, United States
Subpar service and severely understaffedWe called in to place an order but the individual who answered the phone told us to call back in 15 minutes. We called back in 15 minutes only to get a consistent dial tone. Thinking they were busy, we decided to drive over to place an order. in person. Once we arrived, there were only a 1 or two others in the store with us. We overheard another couple having waited nearly 2 hours from the time ordering to actually receiving their food. We stood there trying to get the attention of the cashier so we could simply place an order. After a few incoherent attempt at a conversation, we were handed a guest check receipt book to write in our own order. We handed our order to the cashier who exclaimed that they were not serving streamed rice although we tried to clarify that we did not want steamed rice and it was nowhere in our order. Exasperated, we left for a different restaurant without as much as an apology. We spent over an hour during this encounter simply trying to place an order. It was very obvious that this establishment values customers through food apps more than in person customers.Its worth noting that the cook did not have a mask on and the cashier wasnt wearing a mask properly. We also watched as the cashier took payment (cash/cards) while packaging and handling food without washing their hands.Looking back on it now, we were hungry and were willing to settle for this but im glad we left and ended up finding a much better alternative.
Top other services in Berkeley:
813 Cha Siam Thai tea & Boba
2965 College Ave, Berkeley, CA 94705, United States
I love the addition of a new boba shop on this side of College! 813 Cha Siam has a variety of flavors. They're very centered around Thai tea and milk teas but they have a few fruity options and a lot of pictures for those who are more visual (like me)! I ordered the Brown Sugar Thai Pudding Milk which was a special and it was so good! There's a much larger portion of pudding than I've gotten from any other boba place (so thank you!!) and the crushed ice felt so authentic to Southeast Asian dessert and drink styles. 100% recommend and I'll be coming back again soon!
U Dessert Story
1849 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94709, United States
Great drinks and AMAZING desserts. Their service? Nonexistent.Pre-pandemic we ate at one of the locations in San Francisco and loved the desserts. We had the matcha lava cake, the Thai tea crepe cake, and something else I dont remember. It was so good that when we found this location in the east bay we were so excited because we could drive here and not have to cross the bridge or deal with the cold wind of San Francisco. This location is making me rethink my patronage completely.When I got home from work we decided that it would be a great celebratory treat to pre-order desserts. I put in the order a few hours ahead of time and it gave me an estimate of 7:05-7:15. We chose the Strawberry Cheese Cake Greek Togurt Bingsoo, the Chocolate Bingsoo, Young Coconut Pandan Crepe Cake, Thai Tea Crepe Cake, Hojicha Banoffe, Mango Tango Spritzer and a Blue Lychee for drinks. I thought this was great because Id be able to finish dinner and then we could head out. When we left I got a text saying the new time was now between 7:15-7:20. They had more than two hours to stew on when the timing would work for this order, but I guess they just threw that out the window.We got to the location at 7:10 and I was able to get a servers attention pretty quickly and they said it would be another 5 minutes for them to complete the order. They still had to make the drinks. Id already waited several hours anyway, so what was a few more, right? I got an Email at 7:16 saying the order was ready so I went back in. The guy preparing the drinks noticed me from earlier and said my name to hand me a big bag of desserts and then got me the drinks. It was nice that he remembered and was timely about the hand off, but that was where it ended.I put the desserts in the back seat and the drinks in the front so we could sip some while on the drive back home. We arrived back home around 8 and I started getting the desserts laid out when I noticed the reason why this review is only 1 star. After all that wait, from the pre-order, getting a new wait time, and the drive there and back, they had left off one of the items. So not only do they change the pick up time that they asked me was good for me, they left off an item that I paid for with no substitution and no mention of it when I went back into the store to pick up my order. Youd think that paying $110 with $15 tip would equate to some semblance of service, but I guess that was a mistake on my part. Either way these people were able to waste both my time and take my money without giving me what I ordered. No matter how good their desserts taste the service is bitter and rotten.TL;DL Pre-ordered $110 worth of desserts for them to change the pick-up time after left an item out that I didnt find out about until driving back home.
Noodles Fresh Berkeley CA Chinese Cuisine
2430 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94704, United States
My girlfriend and I came at around 4pm, and were greeted by a very calming atmosphere inside. The ceiling is high, the piano jazz is not too loud, and the open kitchen format makes the whole place feel a little more lively. It was a cool experience to watch our food being made from the other side of the restaurant. Made the whole place feel pretty classy, but not inaccessible.We ordered the Hainan Chicken and Jiang-de noodles, and they arrived within 8 minutes of ordering. Both were quite tasty without being too salty (salty is a common criticism I have for Chinese restaurants around Berkeley, but not this one).In the Jiang-de noodles, the bitterness of the cabbage cuts through the sweetness the bell peppers and sauce contain, and the chicken is not dry at all, while the whole dish strikes a good balance with its spiciness.I'd highly recommend the Hainan chicken. I've been craving a place around Berkeley that can make it well, and I noticed that this place has an $8.95 lunch special for the hainan as well (M-F 11:00-2:30ish), which is a great deal for Downtown Berkeley.If you're a student and looking for a good date spot without breaking your wallet, I'd also say this is a good bet (: