Funky Elephant

The staff here is friendly and the restaurant has a good mix of indoor/outdoor seating. Now onto the food. I would not consider this traditional Thai food, granted the flavors were good, but the cost, i don’t think the experience is justifiable. Especially the steak dish. We’re talking maybe 5oz of flank steak in a curry sauce with arugula thrown on top for >$20. While the restaurant is trendy and the food presents extremely well, i doubt this place will have any trouble appealing to the Berkeley crowd.

I tried the beef curry and ordered a jasmine rice to go with it, with a strawberry matcha almond milk latte to drink (they didn’t have strawberry on the menu, but mango was in the menu and was out of season). It was pretty pricy for what it was, but tasty. There wasn’t a huge amount of steak but it was cooked nice and medium (on the end towards rare), in a cardboard box and eaten outside it was pretty cool pretty fast which wasn’t ideal. The curry sauce was delicious and had a kick. The dressing on the arugula was good. The strawberry matcha wasn’t great. I’d try it again without the strawberry because it didn’t add any actual strawberry flavor and just made the drink too thick, but I’m not sure that would make it any better, so I might pass after that next try. The food took about 20 minutes, so it was probably made very fresh. They have a bit of seating, only outdoor still and mostly pretty sunny. A restaurant next door seems to have closed, so there are extra tables with more shade. The staff was great and super friendly.

Highly highly recommend this gem!! It’s as close to Real Thai food as you’re going to get in the States… please don’t ask them to omit fish sauce or spiciness.. that’s a big part of the appeal for this place.. The Flavors were all perfect.. a highlight was the drunken mussels and black cod curry with vermicelli.. It’s a great spot with friendly staff..

Absolutely horrible. The server and the manager are both extremely rude and unprofessional. Telling the customer that they ate plenty of it when they are reporting a dish as bad is horrendous. This is when another table told the same thing. The waiter was racist. She dealt with the party at the other table much more nicely and when we reported the same dish had the gall to tell us that we are just doing it because the other table also did it. Will absolutely never go here ever again and you should also not.

Wow! Funky Elephant is amazing! It’s authentic Thai food that you can’t often find in the US. The menu is small, but everything is unique and delicious. We tried the fried rice salad. It’s a build your own salad/lettuce wraps. The flavor was complex and refreshing. Drunken mussels are a must! They come in a rich dark sauce that would be great with rice. The mussels are huge and meaty. Gang Rawang Beef is a curry based dish. It’s a medium rare flat iron steak that has a great char. It comes with arugula and a yellow curry sauce. The flavor combination is amazing! Fried shrimp salad - I found this more like an appetizer. The eggs are cooked over easy. I found it best to just pick it up with my hands and eat it. Cutting it with a fork can get messy. It came with a chili sauce on the side. So good! I found the pea flower jasmine rice to be very unique. It’s a bit on the pricey side, but so worth it! Currently they are offering take out only. They do have one table outside, as well as a few public wooden benches that could seat 12 per table. If I lived closer I’d come here often or order take out.