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.

Saysetha Thai - 6230 Telegraph Ave

This place had the odd... convenience?... of a buzz-in door that, presumably, keeps out the riff-raff. Since I routinely dress like the riff-raff and was sporting a mohawk the day we went, Partner in Chow and I wondered whether or not we'd make the grade.

Fortunately, we apparently looked respectable despite my pink mohawk, and in we went.

We've now eaten at Saysetha once and ordered take-out twice. I think that this place overall is better for take-out, because the ambiance is a depressing 80's time warp. You almost expect someone in Miami Vice clothes to be hitting the buffet... not that there's a buffet to be had, but the atmo would suggest that, at some point in the decor history, there was some sort of awful buffet full of fried things that tempted diners who might be just as happy at Denny's. That being said, the food is good and really cheap, and because it's so cheap it gets extra bonus points for still being good.

The other thing that puts this place ahead of most Thai restaurants is the ability to substitute gluten for your protein, which is a welcome alternative to soy. Tofu can just get boring. So...

What we've ordered: appetizer explosion plate, fresh spring rolls, chicken curry (yellow), gluten curry (red), papaya salad, cashew chicken
Service: very friendly - the Mom of the Mom 'n Pop
Atmo: as referenced, the last time this place was remodeled there was no such thing as the Interwebs
Crowd: the neighborood
Spent: around $25.00
Overall rating: 3.5 sporks

This isn't the best Thai we've ever had, but it's pretty darn good. The papaya salad has just a little too much fish sauce for me, but since it's one of my favorite Thai dishes I order it anyway. The appetizer platter was a bit too full of fried items - my bad for not noticing that the spring rolls on it were the fried ones.

The fresh spring rolls are delicious and FRESH, and they get a 5. The nice addition of mango to go with the mint just makes this roll extra special and fresh-tasting. Note: eat them all, because if you keep them for leftovers the rice paper gets really stiff.

The curries are unpredictable in ingredients, but good: the night we ate in there, the yellow chicken curry was good but there were basically no vegetables other than potatoes. This last time, the chicken curry was absolutely loaded with string beans. So you might want to clarify exactly what they have on-hand that day for your curry, if you have strong opinions about what goes in there.

The gluten red tofu was delicious, and the texture of the gluten was great - not too chewy or too soft. Remember, this isn't on the menu.

The cashew chicken was better than any Chinese cashew chicken we've gotten - less greasy, less mystery-meatish. So if you don't want curry and like Chinese food better anyway and only came for Thai because you got outvoted, this is a good option.

Overall, we'll order from Saysetha again due to the pricing and protein flexibility. I freak out about non-organic meat but I also tire of tofu, so it's nice to know that I can get cheap, solid take-out Thai and still get my protein without getting awful images of factory farms and such.