Little Plearn Thai Kitchen

Love this place! Staff is kind and food is delicious.

Good, not great.
1. They accept cash only.
…huh? This is the 21^st century. Had to leave and come back with cash before ordering.
2. Very nice vibe, enjoyable atmosphere compared to most other local thai restaurants.
3. Food is okay, not bad, not amazing. Acceptable thai place to eat.
4. Customer service is okay but not great. Had to wait like 20 minutes after having plates cleared to receive a check. Not much maintenance happened during the visit.
Overall: Annoying that they don’t accept cards, food and customer service not amazing. Come here mostly for the vibe.

I love Little Plearn! I appreciate that the restaurant is family run, and the service is friendly and attentive. You can grab a quick Thai lunch for less than $ 10! I recommend the Pad Kee Mao — perfectly spicy and a must-​have on cold days.

Very good and well spiced food. Good service with a knowledgable server. Portion size was good for a Thai restaurant. My nly complaint was the lighting was a bit to bright for a dinner scene.

Favorite spot downtown
Cash only
Friendly family run
Favorite is the Tim Yum Dry Noodle… give it some pop with the fish sauce and chilis in the sauce tray. YUMMMMM

Good service. Earnest effort to plate a solid Thai-​style meal. Comfortable environment.

We came in because I looked at the menu in the window and they have one of my favorite Thai restaurant appetizers — Meung Kum. Yum!
We also had Thai iced coffee (very good, with plenty of cream), yam fries, beef salad (with a lot of lovely «popping» flavors) and roast duck (with interesting vegetables). We ordered 1 rice and also some peanut sauce.
My only quibble was that some of the duck seemed a bit over-​cooked. If you like really crispy duck, that will be OK. I prefer my duck a bit more tender, less crunchy.
Otherwise, everything was interesting with snappy tastes and textures.
The restaurant is small (long and thin) with table space for about 40 people. It seems to be an undiscovered gem (no line at 6pm on Saturday night). It was far from empty, but you could probably bring a larger party here if you come early and plan ahead. The tables along the one wall can easily be adjusted to accommodate 2, 4, 6, or more.
The wait staff was attentive and pleasant. There’s a note in the menu that says No credit cards or ATM cards so bring cash!
Little Plearn Thai Kitchen is now on our list to go back to the next time we’re in this part of Berkeley.

This restaurant must be under new management. My latest foray over there, was not a pleasing dining experience as it was before. The Tofu and mixed veggies were totally overcooked. The veggies were not crisp and they were moisture saturated. The portion was small as well. This was not the Plearn I remember from years past. I will not return. Maybe the one on University will be better.

Excellent! Loved the green chicken curry and Bird’s service was top notch. They don’t accept credit cards so before I left for the ATM, he took my order do when I got back, Boom!

The wait for the Great China was too long so we came here. Despite the price being only one $ on Unilocal,the taste and quality of the food is that of a $$ restaurant. I am definitely coming back.

Glad we just happened to get a parking space in front of Little Plearn, had no idea it was there — it’s easy to overlook if you’re just walking by.
So delicious! We had an order of fishcakes and Siam Noodles, both were excellent. Knocking off a star because the Siam Noodles were part of a lunch special but we didn’t get any of the «extras» for some reason. Otherwise, excellent service and super tasty, we’ll be back.

Great place, great food. We’ve been coming to Little Plearn every other week for a few months now. The food is always cooked just right and with great flavors. The service is friendly and helpful, and their flexibility on turning dishes to vegetarian or to mild without compromising flavor makes this place an awesome fit for diverse groups.

Vegetarian. The food was pretty good. I had the woo sen garlic noodle with tofu. The Thai iced tea is pretty good too.

I’ve been going to the _​real_​Plearn on university ave for close to 15 years. They have some of the best Thai food in the East Bay, including the best pat thai I have ever had anywhere in the world.
On to the review of «Little Plearn». We ate there for lunch. It was fine. Nothing special. I had the penang curry and it was pretty good – peanutty and basilly. My friends had the pat thai, which was made with bean threads instead of rice noodles, a major no-​no in my opinion.
OK food, ok prices, ok service, cash only, loud: a solid three stars in most any other situation. Now, I know Plearn is a common name in the Thai restaurant business, but I still cannot for the life of me understand why the owners chose «Little Plearn» when Big Plearn is two blocks away, offering superior fare for the same price, years before this place shows up. I’m left to conclude that that this is some sort of subterfuge intended to siphon unsuspecting customers away from one of my favorite restaurants in Berkeley. This I cannot abide.
tl;dr; Go to the real Plearn on University, and not this poor imitation.

I was looking for a quick lunch before my movie. They were hidden on Shattuck Ave in Berkeley directly across the street from the UA Berkeley Theater. There was a sign on the door and on front of the menu that they didn’t accept credit cards. I can appreciate that so there aren’t any surprises when the check comes.
There were 11 tables, half of them were high tables. It would be possible to have a large group if you came early. There were quite a few single diners having lunch.
I ordered off the lunch menu. There was plenty to choose from. I ordered the Pumpkin Curry with Chicken Lunch Special. It came with a small salad and a choice of fried or fresh spring roll.
The food came out on a large round plate. The salad was iceberg lettuce with a sweet creamy dressing on it. The fresh spring roll was vegetarian. Very fresh served with a sweet chili sauce.
The Pumpkin Curry with Chicken was a bowl of yumminess. Tender white chicken, red bell pepper and green string beans. I asked for Thai Hot, so there were slices of fresh red chilies.
One thing I did not like seeing was that the owner/​server sat down at a table in the back with a colander and a pile of green beans. I felt that she should have done that in the kitchen or when there weren’t as many customers in the restaurant.
They did not have a Take Out menu or a website. The owner/​server said that they were working on redoing their menu. The food was good and I’ll be back.

Man. I don’t like giving less than 4 star reviews… but «A-​OK» pretty much describes how I feel about Little Plearn.
I came here once… got a lunch special.
The food was fine, the service was good, I was satisfied… but I haven’t been back.
My cousin, who used to work around here, swears by their Tom Yum soup… but I didn’t know this beforehand, otherwise I would’ve tried it. Instead… when I’m in the mood for Thai food, I find myself (without having a second thought) going to what is now my de-​facto lunch choice for stir-​fried noodles, soup noodles of the Southeast Asian variety (which is not Little Plearn).
If people are looking for a full-​menu of Thai dishes, I would certainly be open to/​encourage people to come here… but for a simple man in need of a quick Thai fix, I haven’t been too self-​encouraging to get myself back to this restaurant. Yet.

Yikes, this is probably the worse Thai food experience I’ve ever had. The Thai specials were very generic looking so I picked the chicken with prawns and green beans. All their lunch specials are 9 – 10 dollars each.
The food looked pretty but the green beans were old and hard (there were very little), the three prawns were nice, but there was lots of chicken. The chicken was dry and cooked to death. Finally, the flavor was the worse part. They added what tasted like bottled sweet Asian sauce and it was extremely artificially sweet like corn syrup mixed with lots of salt. I would say that it was inedible. I ate some because I was hungry but left half of it on the plate. The server asked me if I was done but didn’t ask if everything was okay. The servers were cold and unfriendly.
I won’t come back.

Vegan friendly, this is one of the few places in the bay area that not only understands that fish sauces is not vegan friendly, the American owner and her Thai Husband have done a great job of insuring that while the fish sauces is missing in the veggie dishes the flavor is not!
One of my favorite places for Thai.
I love the owner, super friendly and always remembers my orders. I have eaten here off and on for several years and each time i know why I come back :)
My top dishes are the curry noodle soup, fried rice, any of their curries, drunken noodles (which normally I hate) and their basil anything oh and I can’t forget teh TomYum soup.
I don’t eat meat, but have taken many people with me who do and all have loved this place and come back.

Plearn isn’t super fancy but it’s homey and cozy. I was craving noodles so I got the pad see ew with tofu. There was broccoli, carrots, and a good assortment of vegetables along with my tofu. My dish came out piping hot and I really like how it came with more vegetables than other pad see ew I’ve had. The portion was quite filling and I was stuffed after finishing my plate. My dish was $ 8.95 and came out to be $ 9.78 after tax. (Not including tip). There were other things I would have liked to try such as the pumpkin curry. Only thing is that it’s cash only so don’t forget!

Not sure why this place doesn’t have better ratings because my experience here was great.
I got my dish to go but I got a spicy basil tofu with brown rice. It was very tasty! The basil and spices made the dish extremely flavorful and the tofu was deep fried and perfectly crispy on the outside, yet soft on the inside. The dish also came with a little bit of sauce which was nice because it wasn’t dry and made the dish a little more heavy as well. The prices are extremely reasonable as well – my dish with tax was only $ 8, which is great for a restaurant in downtown Berkeley.
The only negative things were that this place only takes cash, which is weird because it’s definitely a nice sit down restaurant.
It’s a little far from campus and my apartment which is why I haven’t been back but I will definitely be back soon!