Champa Thai Restaurant

the restaurant is closed for business. sign is down and place is empty. tried calling in a order last week and no one answered, so i drove by.
siam palace a couple blocks ewa is great and they are open for lunch… despite the incorrect info on their Unilocal page.
— hungryforthaifood

This location is far better than the other off Kam highway!
Their food tastes so much better here. Love their papaya salad & their pad se ew! Green curry is delicious too!

First, I want to start by saying I’ve gone to the Champa Thai in front of Pearl Ridge many times and I have always been very satisfied. I’ve ordered to go and the food is always fresh and tasty.
I decided to try the one in Kaimuki because it is close to my house and didn’t feel like driving all the way to Aiea.
I should have driven to Aiea.
The first sign that it was going to end bad was the kitchen. We walked by the back and the kitchen looked dirty. We still decided to try it because, well, we were hungry and already there. We walked in there was a sour smell inside the restaurant. With our previous experience at the other restaurant we decided to still sit down and order (against my wish, I wanted to go but the wife said we are already here).
Then we ordered.
We ordered the spring rolls, summer rolls, and the Panang curry with the sticky rice. The spring rolls came first. They were tough. I mean beef jerky tough. My four year old daughter couldn’t eat them and you had to cut them with a knife. You could tell they had been reheated. Bad!
The summer rolls are the reason the got atleast one star. It was the only good thing here. They were fresh and tasty.
The Panang chicken was definitely re fried. The chunks of chicken were dry and super oily. They might have over seasoned with one type of seasoning because they tasted straight up like laundry detergent. Really Bad!
The sticky rice didn’t have that coconut taste
Heck, even the water had a funky taste to it.
Anyways, I paid dearly because I got food poisoning and was worshiping the porcelain God all day on Sunday.
Never again will I set foot at that place. Aiea one, yes, once I get my disgust from Thai food out of the way.
It’s a shame because they both have the same name but not even close to the same taste in food.

First timers, not impressed.
We ordered…
–Chicken Pad Thai
–Papaya Salad (medium)
–Fried Chicken
–Tom Yum Soup
This is our «usual» when we try new thai places… we like to compare to our favorite restaurant.
The pad thai and papaya salad were good, nothing special but nothing bad either. The friend chicken was dry and not that crispy. For almost $ 10 for chicken I was hoping for more…
The tom yum soup was most disappointing… it didn’t have that yummy sour taste… I may be wrong but I think of that sourness when I order tom yum soup… Bleh. Didn’t finish the whole thing.
Won’t be back, there are other thai places in the area. /:

Ordered take out. Spicy Chili Chicken Fried Rice. It was very soggy, tasted like it was burnt, used way too much oyster or fish sauce.

Honesty– I live up Sierra Drive and we have multiple choices of restaurants to dine at. I have eaten at champa thai before and been satisfied but my most recent experience was AWFUL.
We ordered the «safe option» for my wife Pad Thai and I had Shrimp Panang. Her meal was below average and she was needless to say disappointed.
My meal is the reason I have given this business only a single star. My meal had equal parts hair to shrimp. Yes, that’s right … It would be disgusting to find one hair, but two? Top that with the fact my curry had only two shrimp in it as well.
Champa– I’m sorry to say that your awards from 2007, 2008 and 2009 are simply reminders of how good you USED to be.
Local residents– beware

I ordered delivery from Champa Thai using Aloha 2 Go delivery service, and was satisfied! I had the yellow curry with tofu: big chunks of tofu, potato, carrots, and bamboo shoots. It was delicious. I ordered medium heat and it was a lot spicier than what most restaurants might call medium… so I will probably get mild next time. Other than that, no complaints! My boyfriend had the fried chicken panang curry and also enjoyed his meal. Plus we both had at least half of our meal left when we were full — you can’t really beat 2 meals for $ 10.

Yellow curry with chicken.
Spicy.
Side order of sticky rice.
Can’t order anything else. So delicious.

Ohhh Champa Thai… how I love you! Sometimes you just find yourself searching for Thai food that reeeeeally hits the spot!
Pros:
–Never too crowded
–Order family style; you can taste a little bit of everything and it makes it more affordable
–Pad thai with tofu!
–Spring rolls!
–BYOB
Cons:
–Hmm… can’t really think of any! Umm… the bathroom is kinda small?

Siam Palace is MUCH better and just down the street, although Champa Thai is mediocre but decent Thai fare.
Phad Thai: Pretty typical, nothing too special but the amount of sauce to noodle was just right, so yay for that! Flavor-​wise it was missing the super savory richness I come to crave with Phad Thai AND no lime?
Panang Curry: Too watery for my liking. Slid right off the rice. Only long beans and the meat of your choosing were including, which would have been «fine» if the sauce was better. If you’re going to have super watery broth, you might as well put in veg that will soak it up!
Long Beans: a TON of ginger, which was kind of difficult to gnaw through. The sauce was okay… also pretty watery and did not adhere well to the beans. Under lying cabbage, slightly mischievous to make the beans look like more on the plate.
All in all, if you’re in a jam come to Champa… because it’s BYOB? but in the vicinity, there is better Thai & other restaurants you should be going to.

Sigh. why haven’t I tried Thai food before… And it doesn’t help that my mom’s cousins are part thai.
actually. i think I may have tried it before but that was when I was a child and you know how children are such picky eaters. lol.
anywho! After a night of volunteering at the Palolo Community Center, my boss treated my friend/​co-​worker and I to dinner as a way of thanks. (Free dinner for doing a good deed? can’t get any better than that ^_​^) and that is where I found myself at Champa Thai. It is located across the street of Crab City on Waialae and a few stores before the Cam Security System store if you are going down Waialae. There are a few stalls in the back of their restaurant and I mean «few»; maybe three if anything but I’m sure you can find street parking no problem.
We got there around 6 and the restaurant was empty. At first we thought it was closed but after seeing the neon «Open» sign, we were good haha. We chose a table by the window and were served water immediately after being seated.
It’s a cute little restaurant. nothing fancy or breath taking but it didn’t matter to me. I loved it!
Now on to the food!!!
Since I’ve never had Thai food, I left the ordering to my boss and friend. We ordered the Spring Rolls, Stuffed Chicken Wings, Panang Curry, Pad Thai Noodles. I got some sticky rice since I thought «Why not step out of your comfort zone». Everything is ala carte so we shared it all family style.
Sigh. where have you been all of my life stuffed chicken wings? Lol. It was sooo good. All of the food was. The Spring Rolls were a refreshing change from the usual ones I get when I eat phở. But the Chicken Wings. I could eat that by itself and leave a happy camper. I feel like it’s the same stuffing they put in the spring rolls and they just shoved it into the chicken wing. How can that get any better? Eating two of my favorite things at the same time? Yes please! The chicken wings came with a sweet spicy sauce. Party in my mouth!
The panang and pad thai were sooooo yummy! We got the mild curry and I’m glad that I did. the mild itself was still spicy where I found myself drinking as much water as I could. It could also be because I’m a weak sauce. Hmm… The pad thai. DELISH! Im not a fan of bean sprouts but they actually make it work and I have no problem eating it. The sticky rice was very interesting. I could really taste the coconut and it was good. Personally I couldn’t eat it all. I like the coconut taste but if I eat too much of it I can get a little queasy. But that’s just me. It had nothing to do with the restaurant’s way of making it. Remember. I’m a weak sauce.
The price I felt was a little ehh. The chicken was about 9 bucks for four pieces, noodles and curry maybe 12 bucks each. Being that I’ve never been to other thai places, I don’t know what the average goes for. Sticky rice was about 1 something.
On another occasion: I took my bf here after non stop talking about this place so we finally had time in our busy schedules to get a bite to eat. We ordered the same thing since it was only my second time and didn’t feel pro enough to order something different. But I don’t care. what I got was good. And he loved it! Every bite off of each plate and he was silent. When he isn’t talking I know that it’s good and he just wants to enjoy the food. Afterwards though, he couldn’t stop talking about how good it was and how he is really glad that I brought him here. Another point to being a great gf (Yeah I know. I toot my own horn. TOOOT TOOT!

Absolute Trash!
I know Thai Food and this was not good. It was down right Awful!
Papaya Salad tasted like a mouthful of salt water and sand.
heavy amounts of soy sauce in PadThai and no lime
Kung Pao chicken (Thai? really. lol)
only thing edible were the spring rolls
Had to take out. after trying everything we threw it in the garbage and pulled left overs out of the fridge. Champa Thai was not even edible.
Place was dirty and girl behind counter more interested in texting then customer service.
Funny thing is we went there because Hale Aina awards have them listed #4 Thai in Honolulu. What a joke. I can tell this location needs to be shut down, immediatly!!!
If you want Thai in Kaimuki go to Too Thai For or drive to Chiang Mai on King Street.

Never going back here. Service is bad. We walked in the door and waited about 5 minutes to be greeted and seated. When we finally got seated, it took a while to get water and put in our order.
When we finally got our order, we got something that we didn’t order and the waitress insists that is what we ordered. We knew that we didn’t make a mistake because we had pointed and showed her on the menu what we wanted and she even asked us questions about our order. So she took the food back with attitude and brought us what we order. We finally got our Panang with tofu instead of chicken and it tasted horrible. We had to force ourselves to eat it. We left so disappointed!!!

Came here on a Friday night around 6:30pm and got a table no problem. Beware, the parking lot only has like 4 spaces! The service was really slow and it was apparent they needed to hire 1 more person to pick up the slack (the 2 service people seemed pretty swamped). Here’s what we had:
Spring Rolls (Por Piah) — Ground pork, onion, carrot, mushroom, and
long rice wrapped in rice paper and deep fried ($ 7.50) — The skin was a thicker variety which I liked.
Fried Chicken or Pork Curry — Your choice of breaded chicken or pork
topped with our special Panang Curry ($ 9.50) — Really delicious, the fried chicken was really crispy. It was served on a bed of cabbage and a mound of basil. Curry was great but not very spicy. But that’s probably because we didn’t say and they didn’t ask how spicy.
Pla Preaw Wan (Sweet and Sour Fish) — Deep-​fried mahi mahi topped with a sweet and sour sauce and mixed vegetables ($ 10.50) — I don’t think the fish was mahi mahi but some sort of fish white which was tasty nonetheless. The fish was fried in a panko bread crumb which was good and crispy. Good amount of veggies.
I’d recommend the fried chicken with penang curry.

Wanna talk about service? Um, ok. What service? Someone came to take my order, drop food on the table, and leave me a bill. No one asked if I liked the food. No one came to refill my drink. Bare minimum service here.
Green papaya salad. Ordered the medium heat. Their version of medium is HOT because there were at least 8 tiny green peppers shredded into the salad. I know this because it was so spicy that I started to pick out the peppers and I counted that many pepper tops! So unless you like really spicy food, order mild.
Pad thai. Wait, are you sure they make pad thai? Wait, is there a server I could talk to about my dish? (Of course not) Why are the noodles dark brown and look pan fried like chinese beef chow fun? Where are the crushed peanuts, egg, etc? These are just brown noodles with overcooked chicken and bean sprouts. Pass on this.
I won’t be coming back here.

Champa Thai serves tasty, dependable Thai food that will satisfy you every time, even if it doesn’t rock your world. It’s a really comfortable, casual space, and they seem to focus mostly on making good food. The service is friendly and reasonably prompt. The menu is bigger than you might expect, too.
Try things here that you don’t normally see at Thai restaurants. We had a bitter melon curry (basically red curry with the melon) that was excellent — a surprisingly good combination. The noodle dishes are all great as well. The pad thai is a bit on the sweet side, but not so much that it’s annoying.
Street parking in Kaimuki is a bit of drag, but if you go down 9^th street far enough you can always find something.

Champa Thai was a pleasant surprise. The menu is diverse and even includes a bitter melon curry that is now my favorite Thai dish on-​island. Champa stands apart from other Thai restaurants in its selection of dishes and discreet location. Be prepared to hunt for parking, and possibly flag down your server if she’s on the phone.
Ever wonder why most Thai restaurants still have those cordless phones with the Mozart ring tone? Gosh, I miss those things.

I got a groupon-​style coupon for this place so decided to try it out. It was not good unfortunately. The servers were very nice, but obviously super disorganized — they not only forgot one of our entrees, but they gave the other one to the table next to us (luckily that table didn’t want it so gave it to us :-p). We had panang curry with tofu, which was not like any curry I’ve seen — very soupy with just about nothing in it. It was kinda gross actually. The other entrée we got was some kind of fish special. It wasn’t as bad as the curry, but it still wasn’t good (and we had to wait over an hour for it to arrive).
As I said, the people there were nice, so I hope they can get more organized and also work on food quality. But based on what I experienced I can’t recommend it. If you are looking for good Thai in the neighborhood, I prefer Siam Palace personally.

Parking:
1. Metered street parking on Waialae Ave.
2. Private lot (only a couple stalls) behind the store.
3. Free street parking on 9^th Ave.
Pad Thai:
–pretty basic pad thai, more «brown» than sweet as Lori I. would explain it to me. There are green onions in it, YUCK! Ordered as a medium spiciness that was nonexistent. However, it was just $ 9 and they do give a pretty decent portion.

It’s really hard to find a good pad thai. You wouldn’t think that’s the case considering it is something offered at any Thai and Vietnamese restaurant but surprisingly, it can be done wrong in so many ways.
Champa is one of those rare places I’ve found that did this dish justice! Since we had already ordered the green curry with chicken (which was also good but I don’t think this is something you can really mess up too badly… I mean, even I can make this at home if that tells you anything :) we decided to go ahead and order the pad thai with pork.
I’ve never tried it with pork before and it was great! The noodles were perfectly cooked, not too saucy and not too dry. They didn’t have the ketchup-​like taste some places’ pad thai dishes have. The only add-​on I made was putting crushed peanuts over my serving (they provide a little container on the table for adding this which I also really like because I love extra peanuts in all of my Thai food).
Here’s the not-​so-​good: I would NOT recommend the papaya salad — it was very flat-​tasting, just really salty, vinegary and plain.
The restaurant is a bit dated inside, not a very comfortable or pleasing dining environment for me but i’d absolutely do take-​out!
Their prices are really reasonable (under $ 8 a dish) and service was very friendly. If you’re in search of a great pad thai, definitely add this place to your list.
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