Tai San - 2811 Telegraph Avenue

We decided to order takeout from Tai San, which was a fortuitous pre-determined decision given my general phobia of (1) bad lighting and (2) carpets in restaurants.

The staff here is really, really nice. The guy on the phone was even really nice. And there was a big table of well-heeled Chinese people inside having a relaxed, leisurely meal, so we figured that the food probably didn't suck.

Turns out it didn't suck. Partner in Chow has gone down on record as saying this is the best Chinese we've encountered on Telegraph, and better than our go-to delivery place (Yang Chow).


What we ordered: mu shu tofu/vegetables (they'll add the tofu for you, either fried or sauteed), hot 'n sour soup, vegetable fried rice, broccoli beef
Service: really friendly and super fast
Atmo: Bad early 90's Chinese buffet
Crowd: Hard to say - there was only the one table of well-heeled Chinese people. It was about 8 on a Tuesday.
Spent: around $28.00
Overall rating: 3.5 sporks

One big bonus of Tai San is that it's freaking cheap. We spent less than $30 on 4 menu items - nice.

Another bonus was the Hot 'n Sour soup, which P.I.C. claims is the best we've had so far in Oakland/Berkeley. I liked it, but I do wish it had been a little hotter to balance the sourness. Sour it was; hot, meh. Next time I'll ask them to make it spicier.

I am not a fan of overcooked, fried or overly rich food - one of the reasons I don't eat Chinese food often, as it tends to be covered in stuff and full of scary meat and hard to taste the main ingredients individually - so Tai San was a pleasant surprise for me. The mu shu tasted fresh and the vegetables were nice and crunchy, even the cabbage. I hate getting soggy cabbage in my mu shu and ate a lot more of this than I normally do.

The broccoli beef was pretty standard Chinese take-out broccoli beef. The beef was that strange fluffy Chinese food beef, and I didn't eat it. PIC liked it, though the standouts were definitely the soup and the mu shu.

The veggie fried rice was also pretty clean-tasting - not a whole lot of oil, not greasy. If you like greasy fried rice that's really been fried, you won't like this. If you prefer fluffier, cleaner rice that's only been lightly fried and flavored, you'll like it. I liked it.

Overall, I'd get take-out from here again. But until they rid themselves of the carpet and swap out the fluorescents and pink vinyl chairs, this is a take-out only place for me.