Chang Ba — Restaurant in Haifa

A cute Thai restaurant in the port area, with high-attentive & kind service.

We were a group of 4 adults that came for lunch with a dog, so they let us sit outside and immediately brought a bowl with cold water for him, and kept adding ice during our entire lunch, which was so considerate.

We wanted to try as many dishes as possible so we went for a sharing lunch, focused on salads & fish dishes as these are our favorites of the Thai kitchen.

For starters (which arrived basically 5 minutes after we ordered, quicker than I even imagined) we tried the som tum salad (papaya salad), pad pak kayo (green vegetables stir fry) & yum pla (herby salad with cucumber & fish bites) - all were good but I especially liked the yum pla. Later we received another salad dish - yam sum o with shrimps which is usually made with pomelo, but since it wasn't its season it was made with mango and it was by far the best dish of our lunch and my absolute favorite with perfect balance of sweetness, tartness & spiciness all in one dish. Another hot starter was from their special menu - steamed dumplings filled with chicken and served on a yellow curry sauce, these were also very tasty and just a s spicy as I like.

We then continued to the main dishes - the first was pla nan see ew (whole steamed fish served with an umami sauce, rice and a spicy peanut dipping sauce) where the fish was perfectly cooked, but I didn't like the flavors as much as I expected. The second was a much better choice in my opinion (as a spicy food lover) - gang kiew wan which is a green curry (we ordered it with steamed fish) that wasn't as spicy as I expected, but still it did the job.

Lastly, of course we couldn't skip dessert and ordered mango sticky rice from their specials menu, it was very good but a bit too sweet in my opinion.

To conclude, if you're looking for a cute Thai restaurant that offers a wide variety of dishes (including non-spicy ones, which is usually rare in this genre), and high attentive service - this...

small place, tasty food. The waitress knew what to sell, and the dishes came out fast, I took fish salad with coriander, which was a little too heavily spiced (the grains of the seasoning felt the size of coarse salt in the mouth), however, it was tasty (though the fish had a slight "defrost" taste, it was ok). then took the dish of green curry eggplant w/ seafood, which was very good, and very hot (once you stop eating, the hot comes down very quickly), with a fair amount of seafood. Since its one of the hottest dishes, I liked that it was served in two plates: sauce and rice, so you can combine it at your discretion (therefore control the spicy-ness level ). finally took desert of fruit with tapioka balls - which was ok, but with small ice particles (they said it was intentional, however, it melts and makes the sauce's flavor dull). Summary: A little overpriced, however, as there is no direct competition for this type of food, so its a fair price to pay for the quality. PS - I sat on the bar, and saw the kitchenworkings, there were 6-7 people, which is quite a-lot for such a small no. of tables in the...

I returned here after a long time away and was pleased. Arriving about 5:30 pm, I was seated immediately without a reservation. On my earlier visits for lunch, you needed a reservation. The menu had a good selection. I liked its annotations, which included pictures of zero to three hot peppers to indicate the degree of spiciness. I ordered a Penang curry, rated one hot pepper. It was within my comfort range for spiciness. It comes with tofu, chicken, beef, or shrimp, at different prices, and is topped by a fried egg. There is indoor and outdoor seating. I sat outdoors, where it is quieter, on a one way street with virtually no traffic. I plan to return more often to try their other...