My friend Marcus, told me about this Buddhist temple in Berkeley where they serve Thai brunch on Sundays. Authentic Thai brunch at Wat Mongkolratanaram. I wanted to get up there and check it out, and since it was a holiday weekend I felt like this past Sunday was the perfect day to do it.

Sooo I recruited a few cool kids to come with me. Megan and Steamboat.

We left Monterey at 09:30 and didn’t arrive at the Thai temple until after noon, (there was a parking situation and a tick situation), which was definitely our first mistake.

The food at the Thai temple smells delicious, but we wouldn’t know. Although they are supposed to serve food till 2, they did not mention that there’s a caveat that they only sell food until it runs out. We arrived too late.

However, there were tons of people there, so I figured it was worth mentioning.
In the back of the temple, there is a seating area, a grassy area, and this permanent wooden structure where all the food is sold from.

In this area, you exchange your money for coins (how you pay for the food) and then you can get your drinks here, and your food at the other stands.

The only food left was the beef soup so we got in line for a bowl.

Tons of seating available.

Dogs are allowed. You could even sit in the grass if you bring a picnic blanket.

We were able to get some of the beef noodle soup. It was okay, Vietnamese pho is definitely better. I think it’s the other food that you’ll be wanting if you stop by. So you better get there early so you can make sure to get some of the good food!

After finishing our soup and snapping a few photos, we headed toward the main road by the campus so we could take a walk around Berkeley.

We did indeed find the main road, however, we never saw more than a peep of the campus. Instead, we happened to find the sports bar on the main road because Steamboat told us that we had promised him mimosas at the brunch and it was the least we could do.

This led us into the bar during the first quarter of the Greenbay game, and it was SO EXCITING, that we ended up staying for the whole thing. Then the Steelers played. Game over. Steamboat and I started drinking around 1:30 and we were going round for round the entire day. We did not leave the bar until 9:30 pm. We saw nothing of Berkeley, we drank the day away and watched football for hours, ohh and Megan and Steamboat hustled some people at pool, 😉 and we had an awesome day! It turned out to be so much fun even though it was unexpected.

When we left to drive home, Megan drove us because she had opted not to drink, and Steamboat was totally out in the back before we had even pulled out of the parking space. Megan and I shared stories the whole way home, well, until I fell asleep about 5 minutes before we got home (what the heck!) haha.

I guess you can never really predict how a day will go, and if there is a change of plans, better just change your attitude and roll with it. Have a good time.

This article appeared first on The Cassey Excursion.