Funky Elephant - Berkeley

I loved this place so much. You have tasteful Thai street food that you can rarely find in other places. The owner and the staff were all very friendly and brought us a wonderful experience. However, today the staff just ruined all my good memories of this place. It is rude, unprofessional and RACIST. She didn't bring us water when we sat, and first I thought it was okay. But the attitude she gave us really makes me wonder what's going on? She closed the plates while we still ate (we have 3 times you are finished with it). She brought us the check into the middle of our dinner without asking you to be asked with the check after a few minutes by interrupting us, and took the signed check immediately when we are still sitting. What makes me really insulted feel she was super nice to the table next to us, she spent tons of time introducing food to this table and she seemed fine to leave the tilted review on the table while they still chat. This really surprised me when she actually knows how to serve. The service ruined the food, the good outdoor vibe and everything. My sincere suggestion to the owner: FIRE these employees to save this hidden gem. (wshe literally said I'm just an employee when we complain about the service. I feel so sad to see our dinner going to place no longer has a friendly mood. My two stars go to the cook, to the food and all previous nice staff

[disclaimer! Five star for the food and most of the staff here, zero star for the one waitress who is a rude racist. I used to love this place. The owner of this place is very nice and beyond accommodating. And I love the food here. However there is one waitress who is super rude and racist. She treated the white customers right next to us with a lots of attention but slighted us from the start. She didn?t check on us, didn?t bring us water when we seated, and kept taking plates from us when we were still eating. She had a super bad attitude from the get go and kind of ruined the night for us. You can see from other comments that I am not the only person who experienced racism from this waitress. My recommendation to the owner is to fire this waitress and save your restaurant from more negative customer experience.

This place is one of a kind. I have never had Thai food quite the way funky does it. I recommend the crispy rice salad, papaya salad and pad Thai as must try dishes. Also if you are a chicken wing person I don?t think they get much better than at FE.

The staff here is friendly and the restaurant has a good mix of indoor/outdoor seating. Now onto the food. I would not consider this traditional Thai food, granted the flavors were good, but the cost, i don?t think the experience is justifiable. Especially the steak dish. We?re talking maybe 5oz of flank steak in a curry sauce with arugula thrown on top for $20. While the restaurant is trendy and the food presents extremely well, i doubt this place will have any trouble appealing to the Berkeley crowd.

I tried the beef curry and ordered a jasmine rice to go with it, with a strawberry matcha almond milk latte to drink (they didn?t have strawberry on the menu, but mango was in the menu and was out of season). It was pretty pricy for what it was, but tasty. There wasn?t a huge amount of steak but it was cooked nice and medium (on the end towards rare), in a cardboard box and eaten outside it was pretty cool pretty fast which wasn?t ideal. The curry sauce was delicious and had a kick. The dressing on the arugula was good. The strawberry matcha wasn?t great. I?d try it again without the strawberry because it didn?t add any actual strawberry flavor and just made the drink too thick, but I?m not sure that would make it any better, so I might pass after that next try. The food took about 20 minutes, so it was probably made very fresh. They have a bit of seating, only outdoor still and mostly pretty sunny. A restaurant next door seems to have closed, so there are extra tables with more shade. The staff was great and super friendly.