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| Credit: http://taylortakesataste.com/thai-in-berkerley/ |
Eating spicy Thai food is a sadomasochistic endeavor: you know it will hurt if you continue to eat, but you can’t help yourself, it’s just so good. If you haven’t guessed it by now, my visit to Cha’am Thai was anything but dull for my taste buds. I ordered the Pad Kee Mao with Prawns, which is my current favorite Thai meal and includes wide rice noodles, spicy chili garlic sauce and a variety of vegetables, which at Cha’am involved some form of squash, bean sprouts, baby corn, red and green bell peppers, snow peas, carrots, onions and Thai basil. Sound good? Well, it was, despite the fact that after my first bite I started coughing and tearing up. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the…Thai restaurant…right?
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| Pad Kee Mao. HOT. |
Fortunately, my burning mouth soon found relief when we decided to order one of my favorite desserts of all time: sticky rice with mango. The mango was succulent and the sticky rice was as it should be: sweet and sticky. It was beautifully plated, garnished with a sprig of mint and a carrot in the shape of a flower. Overall, it was one of the better sticky rice and mango desserts I’ve ever had.
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| Sticky Rice and Mango. Check out the Carrot-Flower! |
The ridiculously spicy dinner and beautifully delicious dessert nearly distracted me from what an adorable little restaurant Cha’am was. It looked like a converted upper floor of an old Berkeley Victorian, but seemed more like a tree house, evoking similar childhood feelings of adventure and whimsy. Their décor of sheer bright pink curtains, blue patterned fabric, and twinkly lights actively distracted me from my dinner conversations with its beauty. At the risk of sounding cliché, dinner here really did have it all. Spicy cuisine, delicious dessert, relatively cheap prices and magical atmosphere—seriously, what more could you want?
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