Thai Nakorn

This is the only Thai place I will ever go to in Davis. The staff is very friendly albeit a tad bit slow, and the duck curry is to die for. Portion sizes for most dishes are average, sometimes on the smaller size, but I always have extra curry to take home so it really does depend on the dish. The chicken satay is delicious (LOVE the peanut sauce it comes with) but at $ 6 for 5 tiny little skewers, it makes my wallet cry a little. My boyfriend and I also both enjoy the pad see ew as well as the green curry but ever since I discovered it, I only get the duck curry here because it’s really that delicious. They are very generous with the amount of duck inside the curry itself. The Thai tea is also really good, not watered down at all and full of flavor.
The only negative thing I would have to say is the little Asian lady who works behind the register (maybe the owner) has been consistently rude to me and the other customers. For example, one night our server was mistakenly leading us to one table right after it had been cleaned, but apparently there was another couple waiting (at the wrong entrance at the back by the to-​gos) so our server hadn’t noticed him. We were halfway to the table when the lady SCREECHED «You can’t sit there! That for this couple here!!» We were mortified, as was our server, who was apologizing so much to us, and we felt terrible for him. I’ve seen her yell at other customers when they’ve brought up their tea to the counter asking for refills amongst other things throughout the years. The rest of the wait staff are fantastic though.

+/​-​THE FOOD
My boyfriend and I tried the tom yum soup, spicy chicken wings, pad thai, and duck curry. All of the dishes pretty much fell short of our expectations. The tom yum soup was overly sweet! Tom yum soup should be spicy and sour, but the soup we had was neither of those. However, the ingredients tasted really fresh, which was a plus. Moving onto our next appetizer, we were really excited to try the wings because we love spicy wings. The wings were not spicy AT ALL. In fact, there was no flavor! Despite the wings being drowned in some thick sauce, it only tasted like the fried basil on top. I didn’t have much of the duck curry but even when I tried it twice, all I could taste was straight up coconut milk– no curry taste whatsoever. My biggest disappointment was the pad thai because I was craving that the most. The noodles came in a huge clump that stuck together, making it difficult to eat. There was barely any chicken, beansprouts, or anything really in my dish, except for a LOT of noodles. The noodles weren’t very flavorful and pretty much tasted like it was tossed in ketchup.
+/​-​THE SERVICE
The servers were really friendly but they weren’t very attentive. The restaurant isn’t really big and I was waving my arm around for a good 5 min while servers walked past without noticing. When we were getting ready to pay, a server would walk around filling glasses with water but she would skip our table and not even bother asking if we wanted anymore.

We had our regular girls dinner here, and the food was so yummy! We had the drunken noodles, a vegetable dish and duck curry, with rice. We definitely liked the free refills on Thai iced teas, but it would have been nice if their food portions were a little larger for the prices they charge. The restaurant was pretty clean, and the service and food was good, so we will be back. Just a note, the restroom is outside, so since it is winter, we were freezing waiting outside to use it.

Hands down my FAVORITE Thai place in Davis (and there’s definitely an abundance of Thai restaurants here). I’ve lived in Davis for 5 years and this is my family’s go-​to place. Their pad thai is amazing and give free refills on Thai iced tea (but that’s pretty standard for Thai places anyway). My favorite dishes are the pad Thai, chicken satay, panang curry, and garlic/​pepper chicken.

Wonderful food and atmosphere. The Tom Kha was tasty and cozy. Perfect for a rainy night.

First time coming to this Thai place, my usual go to Thai food is Thai canteen. But then I was feeling adventurous and wanted to try another restaurant, so I saw pretty good reviews for this place and on a Saturday night, it isn’t quite packed but it is pretty busy. The restaurant is a little cramped with the spacing of the tables and I felt really close to the party next to me. But the atmosphere is nice, with dimmed lights and beautiful decorations.
As for the food, I always order Pad Thai but I wanted to try something new, so I ordered the duck curry which is highly recommended. I don’t eat spicy food and they said that they couldn’t make the curry not spicy and there’s only 2 levels of spicyness so I got the least and it was actually not spicy at all. You can taste it but my mouth didn’t burn! Also the curry doesn’t come with rice, so order rice on the side if you love rice like I do.
Tips for people to come at least 30 – 45 minutes before your regular dinner time because they take 30 – 40 minutes just to get your food out, even a simple Pad Thai will be 30 minutes. So to avoid being hangry, just get there earlier.
I would’ve gave 5 stars if the service was faster!

Not bad, very warm atmosphere, great friendly employees, good food. Little pricey but what do you expect for a downtown campus location. Tell me you’d go cheap in this location hmmmm? Anyway, I’ll be back!

I’m willing to bet you a Thai Iced tea that this is the best Thai restaurant near the Davis campus.
I know, because I spent nearly all my money here as an undergrad, and even when I return to Davis to visit my buddies, we find ourselves here again.
I can’t name a dish that I don’t like here.
I think we’ve tried nearly everything here.
Crab fried rice is my friend’s favorite. The Satay is yummy, the duck curry also flavorful and good. Pumpkin curry, just enough to please our vegetarian friends and us carnivores. And of course their Pad Thai.
Walking in is also like an escape from all your studying.
You literally feel like you’re being transported into a fancy Thai restaurant, hundreds of miles away from your boring school work.
So yes, if you want great Thai food, and to get away from your studies, come here.
P.S In order for me to buy you that Thai Tea I have to be at the restaurant the same time you are. No rain checks…

Great duck curry, crab fried rice!
Refill on the tasty thai ice tea also.
Food are tasty, best thai i find in davis compare to the other ones around.

Ah… No. I heard from someone that this was the best Thai food in Davis.
I’ve had amazing Thai food before and this was just not it. A plate of the Thai Nakorn chicken was $ 15 for like 5 small tiny cut up pieces of just average chicken.
The green curry and pad Thai was also EXTREMELY small. I don’t eat much but I was still STARVING after this. I don’t mind paying for a good meal but it was just alright and way too little.
Never coming back.

Duck curry is a must try here! Unilocalers are right about this one, duck curry is their signature dish, and it’s delicious! Green curry is also one of my favorites here.
Noodles: portions are large enough for leftovers the next day. Pad Thai, pad see ew, pad kee mao are delicious and tastes authentic compared to Thai Canteen.
A little pricier than your usual Davis Thai spots, but tastes waay better, so you pay for what you get right? Basically the #1 spot for Thai food in Davis, especially during lunch time when it’s a dollar cheaper and comes with soup.
Service: 65% of the time the food comes out pretty slow 20 – 30 mins, and it’s hard to get the waiters attn, so be ready to wait or be assertive.

Boy, do I love Thai Nakorn.
The ambience is beautiful, cozy and cultural!
Their veggie pad thai is AMAZING. It’s not too oily, and the right amount of sweet. I asked for extra crushed peanuts on top!
They also offer a complementary soup before the entrée with some veggies in a warm flavored base. It is delicious and soothing! What a great way to start a meal!
It’s also relatively affordable — $ 7.50 for quite a large serving of pad thai!
I am DEFINITELY coming back for more of their thai food.

My faaaaaavoriteeee place in Davis for Thai food. Davis has so many Thai restaurants that it’s hard to choose which one you like but Thai Nakorn is hands down my favorite. I would recommend coming here if you want a more authentic restaurant compared to Thai Canteen (college students atmosphere) or Sophia’s Thai (bar/​night life atmosphere).
I like coming for their lunch specials as it comes with soup and small salad. Portions are fair and generous and I always bring some back home! I love their pad thai and thai fried rice!
They have bottom-​less Thai tea for $ 3 – 4. However I’m usually only able to drink like 2 cups worth.
I always take my friends here whenever they’re craving thai! :D

Our entrees were excellent with layers of flavors revealed in our mouths. My first taste of the salmon dish almost had me disappointed because it was very sweet when it first hit my tongue but then the spices opened and I couldn’t get enough of the sauce. Minus one star for poor pacing of delivery of food to our table. We were still eating our salad course when one of our main courses was delivered. It sat getting cold. Several minutes later our second main course arrived, by then we were finished with our salad.
We will most certainly return to try more dishes. We might try for the lunch specials when pacing won’t be as much an issue.

I’ve been to a lot of thai places and I have to say that I don’t see why this place is so popular. It’s a little hole in the wall right by where the ticket stand for the movie theaters is. They’re not open Monday (whole day) or Tuesday for lunch – the first time I went they were closed! :(Since then I’ve changed the hours on this Unilocal page to reflect that.
I ordered their lunch special duck curry (medium spicy, 8.95), thai ice tea (with refills, 3), and mango w/​sticky rice (5.95?). The lunch special came with soup, I thought it would be tom yum soup but it was just this cabbage and tofu soup that lacked flavor.
The duck curry, despite asking for medium spicy, had ZERO spicy flavor at all. In fact, I felt like my curry was TOO SWEET. It also didn’t taste like coconut at all, it had a strong peanut flavor and that’s about it. The duck didn’t taste flavorful/​like duck, it just tasted like meat – I could have been eating chicken for all I know. The plating was really cute though.
Thai ice tea, no complaints. The mango with sticky rice was not good. My mango was really hard & sour, tasted like it needed to ripen for a few more days. Not pleased at all with the fruit but I did like the sticky rice – felt the portion was small compared with the mango though.
Service was just ok, I felt ignored because they had 2 larger ish tables (one was 6 people and one was 5 people) and then there was me (alone) and a couple.
I’d give them 2 – 2.5 stars but meh… I guess I’ll be generous and give them 3 stars. Would not come back.

This place is a small place but it is a nice place. It’s very cute and has a lot of nice decorations. For such a small place there are actually a lot of tables. I’ve gone here many times and each time I didn’t have to wait too long to be seated. This place is quite cozy.
The customer service is pretty good. The waiters are friendly. The service is pretty fast.
I went with my grandparents so it was a table of three. We ordered the pad se ew, chicken satay, and pad Thai.
For the chicken satay, there were six pieces. There was an abundance of peanut sauce and a little dish of cucumbers and red onions. The chicken was pretty good. It wasn’t too tough and I had a nice smoky flavor to it. A decent dish.
The pad Thai was also a good dish. I personally don’t like my pad Thai to be too sweet. And I found this pad Thai to be perfect for me. Not too sweet but there was still a good amount of flavor. They were plenty of eggs and tofu. But there were only a couple of shrimps. But they’re shrimps. They’re expensive. So I didn’t expect to get too many. However even though I only had a couple of shrimps the few shrimps that I did have were quite big. The noodles were not too mushy, cooked just right.
The noodles in the pad se ew were also cooked to my liking. Good job Thai Nakorm! The flavors were all there. However, personally I though the dish was a bit too salty for me. But that’s just a personal preference. So I still give this restaurant 5 stars.

My friends and I were in the mood for some Thai loving food. But since I was a vegetarian for the week I was kinda nervous on how the food was going to taste. I was going to go with the vegetarian pad Thai but I was more in the mood for drunken noodles. So I opted for vegetarian drunken noodles. My friends got pad Thai and green or yellow curry. They all loved the pad Thai. As for me, I wasn’t a big fan of drunken noodles. It tasted so different from the usual drunken noodles I’ve had in the past. It had more of a tomato/​pad Thai kinda taste so I wasn’t a big fan. I wish I’ve gotten the pad Thai. I definitely wanna come back and give the pad Thai a go and see if it’s good. 3 stars for «okay» noodles

My boyfriend and I have been coming here a lot recently. We always get the pad thai, pad see ew, pineapple friend rice, or the red curry. They’re pretty good — the spiciness isn’t as «in your face» as the other Thai restaurants, and the flavor is good.
The lunch special pricing is decent, but the serving size is way smaller than the regular. And the regular is not cheap. Service is pretty good.

3.5 stars if we’re comparing ONLY Thai places in Davis. I would say this is one of the better Thai restaurants Davis has to offer, given there are for who knows why so many, but it’s still just O-​K. Come here for their lunch specials! They have a good variety to choose from and the prices are discounted (by a lot, if you ask me!). You’re going to receive less portions, but this way you can try more items while paying less.
I recently ordered their chicken pad thai to-​go. I thought it was generic and one-​dimensional tasting (just sweetness). Pad thai should incorporate sweet, sour, and salty. I learned this from a world renowned chef of the Blue Elephant restaurant who cooks for the monastery of Buddhist Monks in Bangkok (Gordon Ramsay tried to make his version of pad thai and was criticized horridly by the chef). The noodles were also a bit overcooked. The other times I’ve tried their pineapple fried rice and yellow curry. I think in general the meats aren’t that fresh but they’re able to get away with it because of the amount of spices/​flavor that’s in each dish. The fried rice was a bit clumpy but otherwise decent. The curry was yummy. And if you’re dining in, get the $ 3 bottomless thai tea!
Overall, I will come again if I visit Davis and crave for Thai food, but I most likely won’t go out of my way to drop by as there are more options elsewhere.

I don’t know if I should say this…
but I think this may be the best Thai restaurant in Davis!
The food is delicious, but a bit pricey for the portions you get. The Pad Kee Mow in my photo was roughly $ 10. Flavorful and the beef was not overcooked. It was the perfect amount to make me full, however if you wish to have larger portions for such prices, this might not be your place. $ 3 for Thai Tea (free refills) was very delicious, probably the best I’ve personally had in Davis.
They use iPhones to take your order, so the servers aren’t ignoring you to text. ‘Cause that’s what I thought at first, haha! The service is friendly and the interior is really cute. I love all the elephant décor throughout the place. Their menu presentation is quite spiffy and I appreciate they have a fresh rose in each vase on each table.
They’re super busy Fridays and Saturdays, expect a wait. Week nights are not very busy at all, relatively empty. Give this spot a chance, you won’t regret it! I’ll definitely be returning! :)
BEWARE: $ 15 order minimum for credit/​debit card use!