Mali Thai Restaurant

Ordered the spicy garlic chicken ($14). It was tasty but a little too salty. My vegetables consisted of one mushroom cut in half, three broccoli stems, 2 long hot peppers, couple of bell pepper strips & a few flat fancy cut carrots with some cabbage. My friend enjoyed her chicken pad thai noodles ($13).

Steep stairs and a tight table layout make navigating the dining room challenging. Once you're at your table, none of this matters. The freshly prepared food is nuanced with balanced flavors. The portions are generous, colorful, and arrive hot. The spice indicator on the menu is accurate. The drinks are layered with enticing combinations.

Atmosphere and ambience is in between casual and fine dining here. Went on a Friday evening but didn't need a reservation as there were plenty of seats (though the inside was booked out so we sat in the heated patio). The food here was what I expected for the price. The thai iced tea wasn't overly sweet and heavy on the (black) tea flavor, different than most other places I've been. The red curry was a two-pepper sign, but I didn't find it spicy at all. Good flavor and slight creaminess to the curry. The tofu in it was fried well and the curry was true to it's original/intended flavor. The pad kee mao (drunken noodles) were made with thin rice noodles instead of the typical wide noodles. They were chewy (al dente) and the vegetables were cooked thoroughly, though the tofu for this dish was pretty squishy (not fried enough to form a coherent skin around). Overall a good spot for a date night or slightly-better-than-average thai food.

I came here for lunch on a weekday around 12pm and got seated immediately, it wasn’t crowded at all. I ordered the tom kha soup with chicken, it was delicious and a relatively large size bowl! I also got the panang curry and tasted the massaman curry and both were great and the perfect level of spice. My only complaint is that the panang curry portion size for lunch was really small. I would definitely go back, but I think the dinner portion would be more worth it. They also have a sizable parking lot which you can access via North Highland Avenue, but there’s also street parking.