Zen Yai — Restaurant in San Francisco

The noodle soups here are delicious, and if you order the ones off their Thai menu on the wall, you can get three different small bowls of noodle soup for 2.50 and 3.50 each. The first is a traditional thai boat noodle with beef or pork. (2.50) It's really tasty and you can adjust the spice level. Topped with fried pork skin, this was my favorite. A rich and hearty soup, get it with wide rice noodles. The other two soups were also delicious. One was a thai sweet and sour soup with fish balls and other seafood ingredients topped with deep-fried wonton skins. (3.50) The last was a tom-yum type sound with ground pork and bbq pork. This was my second favorite. (3.50). For the price and portions, consider it a noodle soup flight. It will fill you up, and hey at these prices, add one more if you want!

The second night we tried rice plates. The duck over rice was really good. Boneless breast in a sweet soy sauce like glaze. Yum. What really got me was the special fried catfish deluxe. Fried catfish in a curry sauce without coconut milk. IT WAS AMAZING! Spicy!!! SPICY!!! SPICY!!! in a good way though. One of my new favorite dishes in the city. The catfish was fried perfectly with a nice crust on it. The sauce was thick and coated everything, on the drier side, preserving the crunchiness of the catfish.

For the prices and the quality of food, this is one of the best thai places in the city. I like it when the menu is not the same...

A few years ago when I was visiting SF, I had the most amazing Pad Thai. Since then, I've eaten pad thai in a dozen countries including Thailand, and the one in SF was hands down the best. I was super excited to return to SF and eat it again. Unfortunately, I couldn't recall the name or the neighborhood so here I am at ZEN THAI because of the 500+ reviews. I know now NOT to trust the reviews because this was the absolute worst PT. Bad service can be forgiven, if the food is good. I really had to force myself to eat it as I felt my bp rising through the roof because it was way too salty and sweet with out a hint of deep flavor. Ingredients were cheaply put together: sprouts, some slivers of carrot, and disgusting fried tofu. Sadly, the shrimp was the worst. They weren't fresh and I felt like I was chewing on soft rubber. I've even had better pad thai on a plane than here. Macau Air, well done! The noodles were done right so they...

Phenomenal authentic Thai dishes. There are so many Thai dishes I haven't tried before?! We strayed from the usual crab fried rice, curry and pad thai. We started with: bone-in catfish $15, e-saan sausage $9, fried calamari $11 and a spicy papaya salad $12. Each dish was delicious with various level of spiciness, taste and textures. For the e-saan sausage, they provide fresh carrots, ginger and lettuce to make sausage wraps. The sweet Thai sauce for the calamari was wonderful. The highlight of this meal was the combination Thai boat noodles $13. They put in meat balls, sliced meat, pork liver and braised meat with an option for beef or pork and thin rice noodles, flat rice noodle, vermicelli, egg noodle or silver noodle. When the noodles came out, it smelled wonderful. That first taste of the dark broth was enjoyable. Great job chef and waitstaff at Zen Yai. This has to be the best lunch of the...