Dakzen — Restaurant in Somerville

Dakzen is a small restaurant with a single location in Somerville, Massachusetts serving Thai street noodle bowls, desserts, drinks and more! The Atmosphere is small but cute and they have outdoor seating as well. Service is fast casual and friendly. The food was fantastic and presented nicely. Prices are reasonable and fair for the portions and quality and overall I'd say this is great place to try out some tasty Thai food without breaking the bank. Would definitely recommend and would love to see them expand.

My wife and I got two different noodle bowls and shared the Fried Gyoza. My bowl was the Tom Yum Noodles Soup which is a traditional Thai noodle soup that's pretty spicy! It comes with ground pork, BBQ sliced pork, fish ball, fish cakes, mini dried shrimp, nuts, bean sprouts, half of a boiled egg and topped with chopped cilantro and crispy fried wonton pieces. You can also choose what type of noodle you want with your bowl. I was recommended rice noodles so that's what I got. The rice noodles I got were thin and cooked perfectly and weren't the thick flat pad Thai rice noodles that I thought I was going to get. The broth was just the right amount of spice with great flavor. It's a clear broth and was a bit sweet but also had a fishy flavor from the fish sauce they use in it but overall savory. There was plenty of meat in the bowl and the right amount of broth. I finished the whole thing!

My wife's bowl was the Khao Soi which was a Northern Thai Curry Noodle Soup with flat egg noodles, diced red onion, pickled mustard, boiled egg, lime wedge and topped with chopped cilantro and a fried egg noodle ball. Her bowl was also delicious. More broth than my bowl and slightly spicy but not as spicy as mine. The broth is rich with coconut milk and curry and the topping complemented it well. I really enjoyed the egg noodles with it as I haven't had many noodle bowls with flat, thin egg noodles before. The crispy noodle ball gave a nice balance in textures and the lemon wedge added acidity that was definitely welcome.

Our Fried Pork Dumplings, or Gyoza, came with our bowls at the same time and was served with a slightly thick, spicy soy dipping sauce. They were fried to perfection and had plenty of filling and I absolutely loved the savory dipping sauce that it came with. It's a bit spicy so if you're not a person who can handle spicy this probably isn't for you.

Overall the experience was fun and tasty I just have one gripe about it. When our food was served, my wife got her bowl and it took almost 5 minutes before I got my bowl and the gyoza. They should have brought everything out together instead of my wife's food sitting in front of her waiting patiently for me to get mine so we can eat. Usually when you order a "street snack" or an appetizer like gyoza it come out before the main meal but they don't do that here so if you want it before your main meal you're going to have to ask.

Food - 5 ⭐ Service - 4 ⭐ Atmosphere - 5 ⭐ Overall - 5 ⭐

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This was the best food I have ordered for delivery.

I normally am never picky and love all kinds or foreign (latino, African, and Asian) cuisines, so my husband was surprised I didn't like thai food before [I had tried a few places before, then he and I ordered from some other restaurants a couple times, I had green curry twice thinking maybe I liked it. I'm kind of a noodle fiend and I ordered 5 different padthai and just couldn't deal with it].

After an exhausting weekend of trying to move and being on the brink of exhaustion I was almost terrified when he pulled this up on seamless to order but he reassured saying, "I know you Hate thai but this looks different, and you love noodles and I think it will be ok". We had never ordered before or heard of it.

Not only was the food delicious and flavorful, but each ingredient perfectly filled a different part of each dish, so that they blended well and offered a medley of texture and taste that you could experience and note as you chewed. The "fried prawns/shrimp with tamarind sauce" looked intriguing on the menu ( love shrimp anyway and had had tamarind sauce before, though it was very plain, just sweet orangeyish bland and thick), so figured we would try it. Not only were we surprised and delighted by the shrimp that came, but the large dish of rich, orange sauce which though it poured well like liquid, was full of specks and swirls of various spices that perfectly complemented the flavor of the shrimps. This was all on a bed of tangy and crunchy noodles, zested with the same peppery goodness.

The noodle bed with "crispy pork" was another excellent adventure. I ordered extra pork bits and it was totally worth the price. Those little snackets of Umami crackle are generously piled over very yummy and fresh egg noodles and asian greens (some kale choy whatever I didn't recognize but was perfectly tender and delicious, almost buttery). The dish was round out by a symphony of sauces and playful jewels of texture (some other meat, hard boiled egg halved and divided, various vegetables).

The mango nectar, class in glass bottles, was refreshingly sweet, quenching to cool the palate.

Definitely a restaurant we have saved in our maps/delivery history to...

An unusually good place for Thai food with a service model that is extremely cheap and convenient.

To break apart those two points: first, the food is really good. It would hold its own being served at a fancy restaurant. I can't recall the names of the dishes I had because they were mostly just different series of monosyllabic words that mean nothing to me. But one was similar to ramen, with neat pockets of different tasty ingredients, and instead of a clear broth it had a creamy curry-like broth, which is decidedly an improvement over normal ramen. The other was a bunch of cooked meats (pork belly, sausage, duck) tucked over sticky rice with a delicious glaze. I hadn't had similar dishes to these at normal Thai restaurants. The food is spicy, to the point that a normal white person might find it overwhelming, but I thought it was perfect, and I imagine the cooks would accommodate less spicy palates if asked.

The service is what really sets this place apart, though. You come in, sit down immediately if there's no line, someone takes your orders, and you pay at that moment, too. This means there is no time spent waiting around for a check. You also are told not to tip. This is obviously a big money saver, and it also just expedites the dining experience because you don't have to spend time doing mental math to figure out what you owe or what is polite to give to your server. This doesn't come at the price of the staff treating you nicely; our server was very friendly and prompt.

And then there's the prices themselves: they're very cheap. You're getting pretty generous servings of usually expensive meats (like pork belly) for under $10 a plate. That's unheard of at other Thai restaurants.

The decor is very pretty and cohesive. All in all, I'd give this place a 10/10. If you're into Thai food, this is a total gem, and its non-traditional casual atmosphere is both convenient and...