It had been 4-5 years since I last ate at Cha Am, with only a vague recollection that I enjoyed the food. Well, I went back last night with a group of 8 and it looks like my memory served me correctly.

Food: While there’s nothing special about the dishes (i.e. if you’ve eaten thai, then you’ve seen the dishes before), they were all tasty. I love it when the food all comes out within 5 minutes of each other, since it allows everyone to start eating at once!

The dishes ranged in size: the yellow curry was in a small boat-shaped dish, which was only enough for about 5-6 people to each get a healthy portion. The noodles and shrimp/vegetable dishes came out on plates bigger than our dinner plates, so it was enough for the whole group + some seconds. All in all, it was good thai food.

Service: nothing grand, nothing lacking. It was a Sunday night, so a bit slower than they usually are on Fri/Sat (as I recall).

Price: Fairly inexpensive. We ordered an appetizer, 7 of us had a Sing-ha (beer), and each of us ordered a main dish. Total was just under $150…including tax/tip, which is ~$18 bucks each. Not a bad deal to have that many dishes.

This is definitely one of the best restaurants in SF (and I’m a native!).

Food: They have this offbeat style menu, where you choose how many courses you want to eat (3 to 5). Then you select those courses from ANY of the items on the menu. Like, if you wanted 3 meat courses…you could have it! I went with my gf and we went nuts, ordering 5 courses each…and all different items. That’s 10 dishes we tried and they were all great. Even the 1 or 2 dishes that we thought weren’t anything special were still above average at any other restaurant.

Service: The service was even better! Not just friendly…I swear that the moment I put down my water glass…it was refilled. I probably could have nudged my fork over the table and someone would have caught it before it hit the floor.

Price: This kind of food and service ain’t cheap. With the food, the wine, and the extra drink we had at the bar, the tab came in just under $300. That could have easily been less than $200 if there was no alcohol and we had fewer courses. But damn, it was tasty!

One of my new favorites!