With lockdown in place, ordering takeout has become my norm. Before the pandemic, I would only dine out on the weekends and I actually enjoyed cooking all my meals during the week. With lockdown and working from home, cooking during the week just isn’t the same or as exciting (especially now that I eat lunch at home and would have to cook twice as often). On the bright side, I’ve had a lot more opportunities to try restaurants that I normally wouldn’t have for whatever reason. This is a great time to explore new options and support local businesses while I’m at it.
Out of all types of takeout (and cuisines in general), Thai is my favorite. I love how Thai food strikes a delicate balance between spicy, sweet, salty, and sour. Some of my go-to dishes are pad kee mao (AKA drunken noodles), pumpkin curry, fried chicken wings, tom kha (a spicy and sour coconut milk soup), and pineapple fried rice. Here are some of my favorite Thai takeout places in the East Bay. Give them a try!
Imm Thai Street Food
Berkeley, CA
Pickup only
Imm is my favorite Thai restaurant in the East Bay and if I haven’t already tried their entire menu, I’m close to it. Their stir-fried noodles and noodle soups do not disappoint. I haven’t come across many places that can deliver on the “wok flavor” – a smoky and charred flavor that’s produced by a searing hot wok – I look for in my stir-fried noodles. Imm consistently nails this and their noodle soups are always rich and flavorful. I highly recommend the duck noodle soup and the kua gai, which is a wok-tossed noodle with chicken, calamari and shrimp served with lettuce and a sriracha-based sauce. Also, I recommend trying these appetizers: the roti dip, wings, tom kha, tom yum, and the larb (a meat salad). Drooling just thinking about it. 🤤
Yimm
Oakland, CA
Delivery and pickup
Yimm is owned by the same folks as Imm. While Imm focuses on street food, Yimm highlights Thai home-style cooking. They still offer dishes that we know and love such as pad Thai, curries, and fried rice, but a section of their menu is dedicated to home cooking. I recommend trying their tom yum omelet rice and the mee cook, which is a cold noodle dish with chicken and veggies in a tamarind sauce.
Sticky Rice Cafe
Oakland, CA
Delivery and pickup
Similar to Imm, Sticky Rice Cafe also nails the wok flavor in their stir-fried noodles. My go-to dishes here are the wings and the pad kee mao. The pad kee mao has a little bit of heat, but could definitely use more IMO. I like my noods spicy. 😛
Up 2 U Thai Eatery
Alameda, CA
Delivery and pickup
If you love tom yum and fried rice with (again) a good wok flavor, you’ve got to try their tom yum fried rice. Imagine a concentration of all the major flavors in a tom yum – lemongrass, lime and Thai chiles – coating each grain of perfectly fried rice. It’s not like anything I’ve had before.
Farmhouse Kitchen Thai Cuisine
Oakland, CA
Delivery and pickup
I know this is a post about takeout but I can’t talk about Farmhouse Kitchen Thai without mentioning my previous dine-in experiences there. It always felt like a cross between a celebration and a vacation eating at the restaurant because of how lively the space and the staff were. Every time I went, there was at least one birthday celebration where the staff would enthusiastically sing their rendition of “Happy Birthday” while banging on gongs and drums. It’s one of the best dining experiences I’ve ever had.
Onto the food. You honestly can’t go wrong with anything here. They have all the familiar Thai dishes and then some. Their crispy calamari appetizer is the best I’ve ever had. All the dishes there are Instagram-ready. The only reason this isn’t my favorite Thai restaurant is that they’re on the pricey side. But it’s always a treat to go there.
They recently started offering the “Little Lao Table Set” for takeout (pictured below). It’s a set designed for two people and it’s a great way to sample many of their popular dishes at once. Dishes include: beef rolls, Hat Yai fried chicken, blue rice, Penang short ribs, pad Thai, papaya salad, fresh rolls, shrimp fried rice, spicy eggplant, and samosas.
Photo: Farmhouse Kitchen Thai Cuisine
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