KungFu Mala 쿵푸마라 功夫麻辣 — Restaurant in Oakland

This is hands down my favorite restaurant in the east bay! But jojo what are you evening saying, I hear you thinking dear reader. With all of the amazing cuisines one can acquire in the east bay, incredible Ethiopian, amazing taquerias, delicious soul food, quality pizza, and so many historic eateries! Yes reader yes this humble Korean subway of soups is the best. Let me take you to a beautiful world, one of delicious spicy broth, where a bounty of choices of toppings await you, and tiny Asian girls eat giant quantities of comfort food on tv. The items you select for your soup is weighed at the end, a pound is the minimum and is around 17. For most, you won’t be able to eat all that soup, you will take the rest home and have delicious soup at home, that’s two soups for 17. Damn good deal in this city. What spice level do you want your soup? Your choice. They have like 5 spice options from not spicy to very spicy. What kind of toppings do you want? They have more than you could think of, and plenty of variety. Does it matter which toppings I get? No! Do you want a pound of everything, a pound of potatoes, mushrooms, beef, lamb, shrimp? No one cares, we are no longer living in a post capitalist scarcity world just for a brief moment in this magical soup store of pleasure. Gone are the days that big boys, girls, and cuties who need a little extra protein have to pay extra, that vegans pay more for veggie protein options, that people with dietary needs pay extra. You fill your own bowl with whatever you damn well please and as long as it weighs a pound it’s the same price as the next persons soup. This is the communist paradise of eateries. All customers treated equally. So please go to this magical place of wonder. Have delicious soup, yummy Asian drinks, watch Asian food tv, drink from adorable cartoon water jugs, and find peace and comfort in the fact that some good things still exist in this...

Quick thoughts: Love this place. Best Malatang broth I’ve had—comparing to Singapore & Paris. I’ve already visited here 3x within 30 days. 🙈 Only suggestion: Smaller side dishes to order, please! Most visitors are in pairs and the size and cost of the shrimp toasts and cream shrimp are made for much larger groups. I really want to buy more things to supplement my soup, but not something that’s as large as and costs more than my entree! Any possibility for Korean pancakes in the future? 😉

If you’re looking at this place and new to Malatang: I absolutely love this place. The first time I came here I just wanted to get a delicious, fresh soup without all the prep work so tried to see if something I tried internationally was available locally: Malatang.

𝗠𝗮𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗴 is a Chinese street food, a “spicy, numbing hot pot” that’s super fun. You get to choose all of your soup ingredients (veggies, meat, seafood), then choose a broth or dry stir fry for your chosen ingredients. They have Chicken and Veggie Broths. Both are excellent. 👩🏻‍🍳 💋

I have had Malatang in a few different countries (first being Singapore) and 𝗞𝘂𝗻𝗴 𝗙𝘂 𝗠𝗮𝗹𝗮’s broth was so much tastier than any I’ve had yet. Also, woo! It clears out the sinuses. (You can choose low level spice if not wanting spicy). Highly recommend checking this place out if you want a nice, big bowl of soup or noodles with ingredients of your choosing! Just know that the price is done by weight of the ingredients you choose, so go easy on your first visit! I added about 1/2 lb of shrimp so my bowl was $27, but so worth it! 😋

Note: I noticed that they recently changed their name, as I was heading to a Pixiu...

Good malatang spot! I have to give it 4 stars since it's pricer- $17 per pound and you must get at least 1 pound. I normally get under 1 pound whenever I go to a self serve place like this so it was a bit much and more expensive for me. Despite that, the flavors were great and I enjoyed the soup. My partner got the dry pot at level 4 spicy and it was spicy and numbing which is legit! They had good selection of ingredients but we noticed no tripe or taro. Also the generic ramen noodles (from the small packages) were $2.50 more, which is really not worth it. You may as well get the glass, corn or vermicelli noodles from the area.

The space was clean, the bathroom was clean, and there's free parking in the back of the restaurant which is unheard of in this area. The only weird thing was one of the TVs inside had women eating soup- no volume luckily! The other TV had kpop and the music playing was something else, so kinda odd overall. I saw the takeout menu is priced very differently so I'm not sure if it's a worse deal but the food was quality. We would recommend and come back. Also not having to tip is great- I don't understand why anyone would tip at a self serve restaurant but let's stop this bad...