Organic Thai grocery/takeout at El Cerrito Ranch 99 Center

[Columba]

Sorry to be so vague, but there's some wonderful food being prepared at this tiny shop across from the Pho place.

We tried the cutest little steamed desserts for $1 and less - sticky rice, coconut milk, custard. They'd make lovely little gifts.

The shop seemed to have ingredients as well as prepared foods. And reasonable prices.

Do you know the name of the shop? Or what else is good there?

[Ridge]

We were always curious about this place but for some reason we never got takeout until a couple of weeks ago. We got some fish ball curry soup with noodles and green chicken curry. It was excellent. We wished we gotten takeout from here sooner. I highly recommend this place.

[Scrapironchef]

Looks like another failure at Pacific Square mall, they've been closed all October. The owner had told me that the management had been trying to raise her rent.

The frozen yogurt place is closed also.

[Armoise]

Bummer—but she once told me that the usual customers of the mall didn't want to pay more for organic/natural. I hope she reopens in Berkeley, where she would be very appreciated! What I loved was authentic homestyle Thai flavors with natural meats—I wish there were more Asian restaurants in this category, not fancy fusion or vegetarian, just not industrial ingredients.

[Scrapironchef]

The prices for her food weren't really any higher than you'd pay for Thai anywhere else. I think stressing the organic ingredients put it in peoples head that they were paying more.

[Melanie Wong]

Sorry to hear this, closed before I had a chance to try it myself. Here's a link to the website, maybe someone can try to contact the owner and see if there's a plan to reopen elsewhere.
http://www.rankanomthai.com/

[Scrapironchef]

Good news! It turns out her main employee had just gone back to Thailand, they were open today with a full line of food. They're going to be closed on Thursdays going forward.

Green curry and Larb for dinner tonight.

[Scrapironchef]

Bumping this thread to report that on weekends she now has a variety of hot foods and curries on sale. I picked up some very good green curry, fishcakes and dipping sauce, and assorted snacks. I sampled the winter melon soup with pork, penang curry, fish curry and a few others. All organic, tasty and taste like Thailand.

The good news was that the store was busy and well stocked and the prices are very good for organic meals. Give them a try, I'm sure you'll find something you like.

Edit - It's in half the space that used to be the Japanese household goods store and later the frozen food place, opposite side of the mall from Ranch 99.

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Ran Kanom Thai
3288 Pierce St, Richmond, CA

[foodn10s]

The pumpkin curry is delicious. It's got a little kick to it. She says it is spiciest item she makes. The food/entree items come with rice; choice of jasmine or brown but the brown usually goes quick. She also has red and green homemade curry sauce in jars for sale.

[kc72]

How long has this been there? Which space did it takeover?

[shanghaikid]

looks like scrapironchef is referring to daiso. looks like it been 6 months.
Ran is now situated between J & S Coffee and the red wine store.
the sticky rice in banana leaf (2) was pretty tasty. some curry seem to be priced at 4.95

[Scrapironchef]

No, I'm going back farther in time than Daiso, and it is on the other side of the coffee shop from the red wine store, not between them.

[...tm...]

It's called Ran Kanom Thai. I stopped by last weekend and was intrigued by many of the choices. There are handmade desserts and sausages (frozen) and a limited selection of packaged goods. I picked up the Laotian sausage and the "Organic Homemade Pork Sausage" with Niman ranch pork, unspecified pork skin, and organic onion/lemongrass,ginger, lime leaf, and chili. I haven't tried this yet, though I did try the Lao sausage. The woman checking me out made sure to check whether I'd had this before because "many non-Thai complain that it is soured--gone bad." The batch I got was a bit more rice-filled and less flavorful than I am used to, but I didn't get the chance to grill it, just pan fry, and I'm no expert.
It's relatively expensive for Thai sausage at about $8/pound for the mostly organic sausage, but I'm excited to try it.

[Columba]

Oh, thanks for filling in some blanks. I woke up thinking about that sticky rice dessert.

Not sure how long they're open nor what they're planning to carry. There was a refrigerated take out case with prepared food and an empty display freezer or fridge. Looks like they want to expand inventory.