I love places with cool vibes and experiences (and pretty food, ngl) but sometimes I just want to grab a bite to eat and not deal with the rest of it. It’s always underwhelming when a place is super cute but the food is mediocre. Imm Thai is cute AND tastes good.
My friend was back in California after spending a year teaching Japan (!!) and we had to get together ASAP. I was working in Berkeley at that time, so she took BART and met up with me. Thai has always been our go-to with our other friend – to the point we know the three things we’re about to order and share – so I settled on this since it was close to my office.
It’s a bright and friendly space, and I like that it looks a little different than most Thai restaurants I’ve been to. It’s a little more industrial, so it feels more like you’re a part of the street food experience. We decided to dig right in and order an appetizer along with some drinks. We split an order of the Roti Dip, which is pan fried Roti served with choice of yellow, red, or green curry sauce (we chose red). I love the cripsy flakiness of roti and the curry had all of those wonderful Thai flavors with the coconut milk. It’s always a great way to start off a Thai meal.
My friend ordered a Thai Iced Coffee and I just stuck with a coke. The coffee comes in a cute mason jar type mug with a handle, and my soda was straight up in a big mug. I thought it was cute and fun – and I like drinking out of mugs, personally. I honestly have a problem with buying too many mugs, and it needs to end because I have no space for them anymore, sadly.
They have a bunch of rice plates versus family style, so that was a little different. But I liked that because we always order too much food during family style meals and it gets hard to finish. I ordered a Rice Plate with yellow curry (yellow coconut milk curry with potatoes, carrots, and onion) that came with a side of rice, and I paid a little extra for brown rice instead of white. My friend ordered Pad Se Ew, which are flat rice noodles with egg, Chinese broccoli with sweet soy sauce. She also ordered with Tofu because she’s the real MVP and rarely orders pork when she’s with me!
Overall, the food was above average and everything tasted good. I still believe that Sala Thai will always be my favorite Thai place, but I like the different vibe of this place, and I appreciate that it’s not family style. They took into account that students will be their main customers, so it makes it easier to order and split bills that way!
bay-food.com 