Cafe Karla

This place is not a café/​restaurant, it is a kitchen! The tea leaf salads are superb. They are packed for you in these plastic boxes (alot of plastic, which I thought was strange because it is located in West Berkeley, but anyway!) There is a small parking lot available for ANOTHER café but parking on street is fine– bring your quarters! Oh yea, CASH ONLY-​NO CARD.
I want to come back for the tea leaf dressing which is $ 6 no tax. It is yummy! I can’t wait to come back. People here are friendly and provide good service by answering your questions and kind demeanor.
One last thing: if you want to eat your tea leaf salad ASAP, bring your own fork!
Now I want some…

not a restaurant, but the only place so far that I could fine tea leaf salads and tea leaf dressing sold right out of their kitchen. Really nice fine folks and the dressing is perfect!

This looks like it closed and sketchy but it’s not. Just give them call and they will open the doors for you. It’s not a sit down place, but packaged salads to go. They have tea leaf salads and ginger tea leaf salads. I think there are other salads too. The prices are a lot cheaper here compared to what I got at Berkeley Bowl. They also sell the tea leafs in jars for $ 6.
Nice and kind people. I will be coming back soon.

I LOVE their salads. I buy them at Alameda Natural Foods. I hate to say it but I think they are better than Burma Superstar’s! (pre-​packaged obviously)
The difference is you get little ziplocks with all the different stuff like the fermented tea leaves, the crunchy stuff, some kind of oil, lime juice, and then the best — the little jalapenos.
I will have to one day go to the café itself.

It’s been several years since I ate Burmese – too distracted by all the other fare in the Bay Area. I generally like to buy a premade salad (sometimes a sandwich) from Andronico’s in the Sunset in San Francisco to take to work on Monday and I noticed they had begun selling boxed Tea Leaf Salad and Ginger Tea Leaf Salad… but was REAL hesitant to buy it. The price is much lower then what I pay for a lesser (less tasty) salad downtown so the price wasn’t the problem. I think it merely was I didn’t want all the preservatives usually on salads so they won’t go bad too fast. But being my adventures-​in-​food self, I finally bought one (the ginger one, I love ginger). Actually, I think the first one I bought I stuck in my frig thinking I’d eat it when I got home from work (too late to eat a regular dinner since I have to be in bed 1.5 hours after I arrive home) and completely forgot about it for a week (it happens, work has a way of wiping my brain). Anyway, I finally did buy one and eat it kind of skeptically. But surprise! It was delicious. I can’t remember what one of these salads tastes like from the restaurants (I had my first at Mandalay on Calif. & 6^th Ave.) but this one was a real real nice change from the usual salads. So now for weeks I’ve been joning for ginger tea leaf salad. Unfortunately, I can’t get it downtown where I work. And there isn’t enough time during the work week to get to Andronico’s. So now I’m buying like 4 boxes on the weekend so I have some to eat during the week. It’s been great on these oddly hot days. I’d recommend it to you all BUT if I get to Andronico’s and find they are sold out, I am going to hate each and every one of you. Now, we just have to get one of the few Burmese restaurants in town to deliver!

I LOVE the Tea Leaf Salad that is stocked at the Berkeley Bowl. Always fresh, ingredients packaged separately, and reasonably priced. Looking forward to trying the Café!

I really wanted Burma superstar tea leaf salad but they were closed so I hopped on Unilocal and found this place. Ran down to Berkeley bowl to pick up the salad and it totally hit the spot. Kinda wish I had got another for later :)
It looks small but really once you open everything up it’s not

I purchased the outstanding Burmese tea leaf salad at El Cerrito Natural Grocery and it was delish! It was worth the 5.99. Fresh and crunchy. The overall quality was superior to many pre-​packaged salads. I now must try the restaurant.
Angela in Pinole

Café Karla is one of my favorite Burmese restaurants in the East Bay! The salads are unique and satisfying. My favorites are the tea leaf salad and the garbanzo bean tofu salad. Both of which are available at Berkeley Bowl!

Great food! I would strongly recommend this place. :) It has a really friendly atmosphere. Everything so far has been really good.

I haven’t been to the café, but you can buy their packaged green tea leaf salad at Berkeley Bowl, El Cerrito Nat Groc. At first I was put off by the price, but…
this is the next best thing to going to Burma Superstar and getting their fresh salad.
Two thumbs up for this product. It does make me want to stop in and see what else they have.