ChiangLai

I’ve been here three times. The Pad Thai is kind of oily, and the curry in Karee Gai is too sweet for me. Actually, everything I’ve tried here is sweeter than I would appreciate, even the iced tea… maybe that’s just their style.

This place was better than I thought. I actually couldn’t decide on what to get from the menu. I wanted to get a curry dish. For me, I need to know if I would be a repeat customer, based on either the pad thai or pad see ew, since these are the default dishes. So I ordered the pad see ew and was pleasantly surprised. It was good, Even took the leftovers home, so the portions were big. I wish I would have gotten a thai iced tea, but next time. I think I discovered a new lunch spot for myself.

Amazing broad menu…
I had Ped Yang Roasted Duck with Spinach over rice, for $ 7.25 for lunch!
Ding! Ding! Ding!
And $ 2 for Thai Ice Tea (which really should never cost more than that!)

I came back to the North Side before class for dinner. Actually, it was St. Patrick’s Day and what I really wanted was a few beers and a safe walk home. After wandering around, crossing both sides of Euclid, and considering the possibilities, I decided that I would give some place within the «Asian Food Court» a try.
The Thai food here at ChiangLai was OK. The décor is also basic, with seating available in and out, but without the congestion upstairs. I ordered a chicken stir fry with cashew nuts and a Snapple. The beer would have to wait until I got home. The food was served quickly, hot, and in big portions. It wasn’t a 4 Star experience, and I might not be back, but it did the trick. And sometimes that’s all you want or need.
CASH ONLY

Meh. My friend and I tried this place only because we were near Tolman Hall… I ordered the Pad See Ew. which was okay. The egg and some of the meat were pretty burnt. My friend had the Pad Thai, which is decent. Though the quality of the chicken was less than dec.
I do give them two stars for the big portions and price. Those 2 dishes basically gave me and my friend 5 servings all together!

I eat here a lot since I live practically next to it. This place can either be really good or just meh. It all depends on what time you go, what you order, and who cooks it. The pad thai here really isn’t that great at any time of day, but the crispy catfish more than makes up for it. If you come for dinner and the bigger lady cooks it for you, it’s AMAZING. It’s still good when the other lady makes it, just not the same.
The papaya salad is also really good. They have it on the menu with their BBQ meat stuff, but if you order papaya salad when they’re not busy and get it as a full order (it’s not on the menu as such, but you can still get it) it’s the best papaya salad in Berkeley. They even add the little dried shrimp that a lot of other places don’t seem to use. If you watch while they’re making it, you can see the lady pounding the papaya in a giant antique mortar.
Remember, the timing is crucial. If you come here when it’s packed with students looking for anything cheap to shove into their mouths, you’re not gonna get anything special. Go when it’s deserted, which means basically after 3:00. The prices stay the same but the food is so much better.

Evan’s Thoughts
If I could I’d give this place 3 and a half stars but alas Unilocal does not have that option. A little hole in the wall in the Hearst Food Court, this place surprised me. I didn’t have high hopes walking in due to to the odd location and the fact no one was there (usually a big uh-​oh for restaurants). But I was immediately impressed seeing the prices and the quality of the food. $ 7 for good Thai food is almost impossible to find and the mountain of pineapple fried rice I got was spectacular.
Bottom Line: Good thai food-​affordable price-​need I say more?
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Madeleine’s Thoughts
Though I may not consider myself a Thai food fanatic, I know good pad thai when I eat it… and this pad thai was alright. I was just surprised by the MOUNTAIN of peanuts on top of it. Usually a sprinkling on top as a garnish is enough, but with a peanut oil on the noodles already, I felt like I belonged in a Charles Shultz comic strip about halfway through (oh, but the portions are HUGE so be prepared to split a dish or get a to-​go box!). There is no bathroom in the restaurant (you gotta go upstairs), the two very sweet ladies in the kitchen were watching (what I believe was) a child getting his teeth removed on the television in the back, there is a very small drink selection but a large food selection, it’s closed on weekends, it’s hard to find, and it has tons of outdoor seating but not a large enough crowd to fill it.
It’s typical college Thai food (hence the typical college «3 stars»)… but don’t college students have the right to awesome Thai food? Meesa says yes.

The forgotten member of the northside asian ghetto family — tucked below on street level. Not the most spectacular Thai, but for speed, convenience, and taste, it’ll do the trick.
When I first discovered it, it wasn’t mealtime so I picked up a thai iced tea. Good as any I’ve had.
Later had a pad kee mow for dinner. Was freshly cooked when I ordered it, and took less than 5 minutes. At quaint Thai places, I’m often left feeling like a dried-​up sea sponge in the aftermath of overseasoning and over-​MSG-​ing (see my dismal Jasmine Thai review), but this was seasoned the way I like it — not too sweet, and not too salty. The main shortcoming: way skimped on the number of «prawns». But the overall portion was HUGE, so I was happy enough.
Sidenote — ChiangLai is a Chinese name, so you’re obviously not getting 100% authentic Thai here. But Thai cuisine is heavily influenced by Chinese cuisine, so I suppose it’s fitting.

Below average Pad Thai with tough shrimp and sullen service are a dynamic duo of dealbreak.

Mmmm curries! Loved this place for the very quick meals and the ability to get a few curries haha. I used to get the beef and the chicken curry and mix bits of it with my rice. GOOD STUFF!
Wouldn’t say there’s a whole lot in terms of service, ambiance, etc etc but… as an undergrad, the place was great! =)

It’s a travesty that there is no good Thai food on the northside of UC Berkeley.
The curry here is passable, but the Pad Thai has this funny aftertaste… a bit like the inside of a hose or something. ChiangLai is much better for dinner, when the prices don’t change from lunch but they actually cook your food instead of serving you the pre-​made stuff (you can order made-​to-​order food for lunch too, but they seem to discourage it because it takes a lot longer).
They do have a nice patio, which is less crazy then the upper part of the ghetto.
I eat Thai food once a week or so, and this place is the closest to my office and my house… and I go here about once a semester.

The best place in that quite-​creepy Northside Asian Ghetto. Much more quiet and less creepy thant the other part since it’s the only restaurant in the lower level. The outside tables are almost cool to stay sitted for a while (not that much outside sitting area around campus).
The food is OK. Decent selection of classic ready-​to-​go thai food. The collection of classics to order is also here: Pad-​Thai, Pad Se-​Ew, Curries… Nothing astonishing but good enough for the price.
Same selection and prices that Jasmine Thai on Euclid but the outside seating is a plus.

This Thai place is great for their red curry dishes! I’m surprised that there’s only 6 reviews for this place. I used to eat here when i went to Cal in ’98−2000 timeframe. Back then, i would get the cheap combo meal from their pre-​cooked food trays. This past friday, hubby and i ordered off their menu. True that the first 2 things we tried to order, they didn’t have the ingredients to make. But once we hit available dishes, it was jackpot.
Hubby ordered the Red Curry Crispy Catfish and it was delicious. The catfish was fried to perfection and sauce so tasty. I ordered the duck and string bean meat combo. I liked how they served the duck boneless and the other dish was very good as well. Either I didn’t remember how good the place was, or I used to scarf down the food too fast to go back to coding, but I’m real glad to have rediscovered this restaurant.
Not open on the weekends.
Food: 4.5 stars
Service: 2 (real slow if you don’t order from pre-​made dishes)
Ambiance: 2
Overall: 3.75 stars

Coming in, I had really no idea what to expect. The first thing stands out about this place is how many freaking menus there are. Every wall you look at, there are at least two menus, most of which are erasable markerboards.
Secondly, there doesn’t seem to be one designated person working the front to take orders and take food out, just one lady who cooks and one other who does I don’t know what, but she’s usually not visible from the customer area.
After you decide what to order, either from what seems to be the printed, permanent menu or from one of the specials boards, it takes a little while to get one of the two ladies’ attention. The cook lady who took my order was nice, though.
I ordered the Pad Woonsean (alternately spelled Phad Woon Sen, at least online) for $ 7.95 for dinner. It took about 15 minutes or so to come out, but like the other North Asian Ghetto places, they bring your food/​utensils out to you and you can get your own tea and water.
The food itself was pretty good, not too oily compared to Thai Basil. It tasted pretty good, had a lot of ingredients (chicken, small shrimp, bell peppers, onions, thin noodles), and was brought together nicely by its sauce. It was enough portions-​wise.
The sanitation was a little questionable. When bringing out my food, they put the eating utensils directly on the table, which didn’t seem all that clean. But overall, this a solid place to eat if you’re willing to wait a bit and deal with the presentation issues.

My husband loves the fried rice and the portioms are huge. Prices are pretty cheap and the woman working there seems pretty nice. However, the place is pretty dingy and there aren’t very many tasty options for vegetarians.

I went here for the first time today after having lived on Northside for years. There were only two women working inside, so I ended up waiting a half hour for my pad kee mao. It was SO WORTH IT.
Not as guilt-​inducing oily as Thai Noodle, just enough to satisfy. Plus the taste was way better. I would agree that the chicken isn’t the best quality, but I can’t say that Thai Basil, Plearn Thai, or Thai Noodle have impressed me in that way, either.
In short: Plan to wait, or eat from the heating tray!

I eat here fairly often for lunch. It satisfies my Thai craving. I usually order the pad kee mao at Thai restaurants, but I don’t here because I’m not too keen about the chicken (I am very particular about meat). So, now I get the pad see ew. It usually comes with meat or tofu, but, again, since I don’t like their meat and I don’t like Tofu, I just ask for extra broccoli. Since it isn’t from the hot trays, its freshly cooked and delicious (and only $ 5.50).
The serving size is nice. When my colleagues orders the red curry, they always specify the «bucket». If you don’t specify the bucket, you’ll get it from the hot trays. For a couple bucks more, you get a bucket with enough red curry to last two meals :-)
The woman who works the front is very friendly. Always has a big smile on her face. It helps to call ahead your order if you aren’t getting from the hot trays, because it can get pretty busy during lunch.

I wonder why no one has reviewed this yet. It seems busy during weekday lunches. They have great lunch specials and provide hefty amounts of each item. I appreciate the little salad, even if it only has one prawn. I walked by someones fresh pad se ew and it smelled so good. I’ll come back for sure to their list of specials, including crispy duck and crispy chicken. There is even a variety of vegetarian and seafood specials.