Koh Samui & The Monkey

My coworkers and I always make an effort to come here at least once a week. We usually say, «Hey what do you want?» and usually our response is «Well we haven’t had Thai food this week.» It is like a weekly tradition to come here.
I have tried a lot of things on the menu, some really good and some not so great. I have had the Fresh Spring Rolls (Po Sod). They come with shrimp, lettuce, mint leaves and noodles and served with peanut sauce. These are my favorite! I usually eat these as a meal also because they come with a good amount for one person. I also ordered the Green Papaya salad. It has shredded green papaya, prawns, cherry tomatoes and peanuts with a spicy lime dressing. This was really good also, but it is more of a side dish than a personal salad. It was so small that I was still hungry afterwards.
Now for the things that are not terrible, but didn’t blow me away. At every Thai restaurant you have to try their Pad Thai. Their’s comes with thin rice noodles with tofu, egg, bean sprouts and lime in a tamarind sauce. I thought it was good, but nothing special about it. I definitely have had better elsewhere. Also, my all time favorite Thai dish is Panang Curry, so I always have to try this too and compare which is my favorite. The Panang Curry Beef is stewed with kaffir leaves in panang curry. This was a little on the bland side for me. I am used to a lot of yummy rich curry flavor and then the freshness of the kaffir leaves, but this just was subpar.
This place is great for a quick lunch, dinner, or a big party. The servers are really nice and quick. I don’t think my water was ever empty during lunch.

The décor and ambiance place is very relaxed and pretty but I have pretty high standards for thai food since there are just so many options in the Bay Area. We ordered a glass of wine to go with our meal which complemented the food wonderfully. The Siracha Grilled Pork was delicious and the perfect combo of sweet and savory! The plating was very pretty and the rice came in a little bamboo container to keep it warm. The Koh Tao noodles with shrimp were delicious and cooked very well. The serving size was perfect and I left feeling full but not stuffed. The food is tasty but fairly average. It’s a great date spot though due to the quiet ambiance with dim lighting!

The chicken in my satay was raw. Raw chicken is as bad as it gets, especially on a Tuesday evening when the place wasn’t crowded. What was worse was that it wasn’t even taken off of the bill, even after I asked if they were really going to charge me for raw chicken. Not going back there.

Wow I wish I had read the Unilocal reviews first to see how far this place has gone downhill.
It was the most pathetically executed Thai food in the history of Thai food.
Imperial Roll was served barely at room temperature. Food safety? Uncooked pork? Wow. Had to send it back and returned barely warmed.
Red curry duck was sick. The duck at been roasted to death until it was as dry and leathery as a piece of jerky.
Rice was not even edible.
Forget this place.
Update: Downgrading to 1 star. Now I have diarrhea. Most likely from the uncooked pork in the uncooked imperial rolls. Or, perhaps from the duck that was sitting around for a decade or two.

Been here a few times. The food is good, but not great. The chicken satay is decent. The pad thai is quite bland. The drunken noodles are a hit or miss: sometimes great, but sometimes so greasy they’ll make you sick. There are not a ton of options for food around SOMA where I work, so it’s not bad if you just want some warm food.

Good food, pleasant staff. they had some deal on to-​go if you get your own containers.

I just work up the street and it’s a pretty good Thai place to go to if you’re looking to get a quick lunch. They have a to-​go section where you can quickly pick up food and of course the option to dine in. My favorite is their yellow curry with jasmine rice. So good!

My bf and I were excited to try this place since we both love thai food and this is the closest thai restaurant we have. We both ordered pad see ew as it is one of our favorite dishes. Food portion was generous and the price was fair, but unfortunately we both agreed it was WAY too salty. Every bite got worse and worse. I think they put too much soy sauce. :(
Service was okay. Our waiter was really nice/​friendly, but not very attentive. We worked hard to flag someone down more than once. I think we are open to trying again but specifically requesting for a lot less salt/​soy sauce in our food. We’ll see.

Very quick so I would recommend this place for a work/​business lunch. Casual atmosphere. The portions tend to be bigger than the normal lunch portion (biggest bang for your buck).
You can’t go wrong with the lunch special which is a 3 course meal with a drink for $ 15 dollars. There is an appetizer option (chicken satay, salad, etc.) and then the main course and then a choice of drink (always go with the thai ice tea).
Its a decent thai place in the city but nothing that blows you out of the water.

Thai food is so ubiquitous in the Bay Area that I don’t even consider it exotic food. Out of all the Thai places frequented, this has to be my default place for a few reasons: close to where I live, fast delivery, and damn good Thai curries. I order from here about every other week and am not surprised if I’ve tried just about everything on the menu. I am sad they’ve phased out the soft shell crab or wok fried duck meat.
What I highly recommend: mango catfish curry, duck red curry, crisp pork belly, pumpkin curry, pineapple fried rice, vegetarian samosa, corn fritter, and shrimp papaya salad.
The ambiance is nice when I decide to dine in and service is always friendly and accommodating. Had to knock it down a star because the price has risen over the years and kinda expensive when you could get decent Thai food easily in the City. But that’s SF inflation for you!

I ordered pad Thai, grilled beef with salad and 2 Thai iced teas to go. They told me it’ll only take 10 minutes and it did. It didn’t look like a busy night though.
This is not the place to go to if you want authentic Thai food. The food was not bad, nor was it amazing. Pretty pricey for Thai food.

The pumpkin curry here is the best! The service was good albeit a little slower than I’d like. The pad thai was ok, only because it wasn’t mixed together. The ribs are literally to die for, super tender and very tasty.
If the staff of this restaurant is reading this, I’m sorry I spilled my Thai Ice Tea on the way out. Thanks for being so nice about it.

Ordered catering from this restaurant for a group of 40 – 45 people and it was seamless. The woman on the phone was patient as I hastily did math, trying not to over or under order. When the delivery arrived, they helped arrange things and were patient as I calculated the tip. I asked to make a couple of dishes vegetarian, and I was pleased to see that everything was labeled very clearly. They made sure the vegetarian dishes weren’t prepared with fish or oyster sauce. It may sound silly, but other places don’t label their dishes for whatever reason… thank goodness for them.
I only ate the pad see ew, which was delicious. I ordered at the top of my budget and I ended up with just a little left over, so their serving suggestions were on the dot! My guests seemed pleased with the choices, considering everything but the thing I enjoyed was completely demolished. I think we were good on food, to say the least. I’d order from them again for another party!

The food here is mediocre, borderline bland.
If you’re coming here for a sit down lunch, definitely make reservations or else you’ll have to wait. Service is also sloooowwwwww.
If you’re looking for a quick to-​go lunch, I’d recommend walking a few blocks over to Ozone for the same thing. It’s a buck cheaper and a lot tastier. Portions are also much more generous over at Ozone.

Thank you Katie B for suggesting our group of 8 head to Koh Samui & The Monkey for a spontaneous family style feast on a recent Thursday night… and thanks to KS&TM for accommodating our party on short notice.
We ordered a ton of food and our servers were great about helping us with suggestions on the right portions for the group. Some of my favorite standout items were:
*Appetizers:
–Fresh Spring Rolls
–Crunchy Puffs
*Salad:
–Green Papaya Salad
*Noodles:
–Bangkok Pad Thai Shrimp
*Entrees:
–Pumpkin Curry
–Basil Eggplant
*Sides:
–Stir Fried Green Beans
–Sticky Rice
And that’s not all we ordered! There were a few other dishes that we enjoyed as well, and there wasn’t anything that was disappointing.
Service was attentive and friendly; our water was refilled as needed and those that ordered cocktails enjoyed those as well. Some of the cocktails and drinks make for great photo opps too (ie: pineapples and coconuts).
This was definitely a memorable meal for me… filled with fun company and delicious food. I’d absolutely return!

Good thai food with generous portions. Had the fresh spring rolls and the prawns cashew dish with rice. The perfect amount of food for 2 people. Service was also very friendly. I’ll definitely try other items and nabbed a to go menu on my way out.

There are only two Thai places within walking distance from my work near AT&T park. One is Ozone on 2^nd, and the other is Koh Samui & The Monkey.
One thing is clear — both are pretty mediocre. The challenge is which mediocre Thai food you feel like that day.
Koh Samui has a higher Unilocal rating than Ozone but I find Koh Samui worse.
First of all, the prices are pretty high for mediocre food. I get it, we’re in techie SoMa so everything is going to be a bit more expensive. But I expect a higher standard if you’re going to up your prices.
Second, the menu is a bit misleading. Our group of 6 all expected something different from the description in the menu. For instance, I ordered fried chicken with papaya salad expecting a breaded fried chicken but got a skinless «fried» chicken. My two friends ordered a pork stew with no «stew» but only pork with very little sauce. My other friend got a ginger honey pork with egg noodles, but this one actually came in a soup without him realizing it.
Anyways, I’ve always known this place was mediocre but what broke me is the last (and final) time I visited. You see, we got in at 12pm and finally got our food at 1pm and the restaurant wasn’t even busy. And all of our food didn’t arrive at the same time. Three people got their food and the others had to wait for another 10~15 minutes which is my biggest pet peeve. Not only that, every table seated after us got served their food first and were out the door before our group. Our server started to bartend (?) and was not interested in our table for the most of the meal. We had to get up and track him down just to ask for the check. Now I don’t expect crazy service at a casual restaurant but they seriously dropped the ball this time.
Nothing at this restaurant is redeeming. I hate writing bad reviews but I strongly advise, avoid this spot.

I was really looking forward to trying this place but was quite disappointed.
The golden bags, were burnt.
The mango salad is nowhere as good as OSHA Thai.
The staff were friendly, but they didn’t really seem to have their act together either.
I love the name of this place, but for me it didn’t have much else going for it.

Intending to head to Brickhouse Café for some relatively late night dinner, we were disappointed to find it closed. Hungry as we were, we saw the lights on across the street at Koh Samui, a Thai restaurant which we had wanted to come to for happy hour at some point. Unfortunately, this was not happy hour so we were stuck with the full dinner menu.
I’ll start by saying that some of the food was decent enough. The pad thai and fried rice dishes were above average as well. Sadly, the problem here was that the portions of meat and the proportional amount compared to vegetables was absolutely pathetic. This could possibly be forgiven if the prices weren’t so damn high. Those two factors combined left us feeling not very impressed.
Overall, Koh Samui did not deliver the quality or quantity that its prices warranted. Thus, compared to other comparable Thai places, «I’ve experienced better.»

Beef balls.
Shrimp balls.
Fish balls.
Notice a theme here?!
Too many balls to handle AND I only have two hands! :p
The really cool thing about Koh Samui is that their happy hour menu is valid even on game days, because I found it incredibly difficult to find a happy hour spot near AT&T park when the Giants are in town. But, mission accomplished!
$ 5 appetizers and $ 5 cocktails (dark & stormy, strawberry mango margarita), we all went cheap except for the old man because it was his bday so he got Ketel One and cranberry, that was still affordable at $ 8!
Awesome deals, I’ll definitely be back and GO GIANTS!

Als ich das letzte Mal in SF war, ging ich gleich zweimal ins Koh Samui & The Monkey. Ich weiss, das ist doof, mach’ ich sonst auch nie und hätt ich auch nicht gemacht rein von meiner ersten Erfahrung her, aber es hat sich nun mal geschäftlich so ergeben. Und ja, Andreas R hat recht, echt ein geiler Name für ein Restaurant.
Relativ klein, aber ganz okay eingerichtet gibt’s hier Thailändisches Essen. Einmal war ich mittags da und bestellte ein Mittagsmenü, was dann günstiger war. Abends gab’s dann A-​la-​Carte. Die Preise sind für SF eher gehoben. Die Präsentation der Speisen war auch echt sehr gut, da isst das Auge schon mit. Und auch die Bedienung war top.
Das Essen selber schmeckte gut. Nicht irgendwie überragend, sondern einfach normal, mit einem extra touch für Bedienung und Anrichte. Ich bin überzeugt, dass man anderswo in SF viel authentischer thailändisch essen kann. Aber das Koh Samui taugt auch mal für ein Business-​Essen. Somit gibt das von mir 4 Sterne.

Was für ein lässiger Name für ein thailändisches Restaurant! Und der gute Eindruck geht auch im Inneren weiter: sehr schicke Einrichtung und die wahrscheinliche netteste Kellnerin die ich jemals gesehen habe. Die Speisekarte ist dann erstmal überwältigend, denn hier gibt es kaum Standardgerichte, dafür viel ausgefallenes wie Froschschenkel etc. Ich habe mich dann für den «Claypot» entschieden, ein Tontopf mit Nudeln, Gemüse und Fleisch. Die Portionen sind groß, mein Essen war aber für den doch gehobenen Preis nicht überragend, aber auf jeden Fall in Ordnung. Eigentlich drei Sterne, aber fürs grandiose Service vergeb ich einen Extrastern.