Homeroom Racing Café

I walked in and it smelled great!
The concept of this place is a lil iffy but hey, if I owned the place I could make it as weird as I wanna!

While searching through my Unilocal drafts, I noticed that Homeroom Racing Café is now closed! Nooooo!!! I was a fan of this place. I loved the décor. There was a very large toy race track in back. Star Wars figurines and superheroes hanging from the ceiling! Such a unique setting.
They made some of the best Thai food that I have ever eaten in the Bay Area. Some of my favorite entrees were Penang Chicken, Basil Beef, Spring Rolls, and Pad Thai. For dessert, the Mango with Sticky Rice rocked!
I have no idea why they closed assuming Unilocal is correct. Hopefully, they will reopen somewhere else soon.

CLOSED. bye bye homeroom! we will miss you. This place was the best: friendly, great food. A very relaxed place to hang out. Hope the owners open again somewhere else.
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The place looks nice and everyone’s friendly but i can’t go back .
I’ve been there 3 times. Every time I get the Pad Thai/​Pad sew, I get a stomach ache.
T

First and last time coming here. I walked in and the place was empty and there were no customers yet most if the tables were dirty with left over food all over the place. My first impression was not that great from the look of it but I decided to give it a chance because my coworker had been raving about their food. I ordered a soup with mild spice but when I tried it all I could taste was extremely spicy noodles I politely ask the guy if they can make it a little less spicy and he said «I don’t think so but let me ask» he came back with the same plate they had just added water because it now tasted like spicy water. Not impressed at all.

Addressing the wait time issue many people have been talking about: it depends heavily on time of day and whether it’s a school day. Dinner time is almost always not that bad of a wait, maybe 10 – 20 mins across all days? Lunch… is a different issue. If it’s a school day (Monday-​Friday during the academic year, aka months of September to June), the wait is LONG as high schoolers flood the establishment since they can get lunch off-​campus. Monday, Friday student lunch is from ~12:15 — 1:00PM, and Tuesday-​Thursday student lunch is from ~12:45 — 1:30PM. Avoid these times on these days and you’ll find the wait much more tolerable.
Been going to this place since it opened up five or six years ago. Home-​style Thai food, so good! The Pad Thai is a classic, but their fried rice is surprisingly good. It’s not super flavourful, but real fried rice isn’t meant to be super flavourful or oily. Rice is fresh and just the perfect firmness. Probably because they use Thai Jasmine white rice.
Almost all of their items are great; I do warn the potential customer not to expect a 5-​star restaurant treatment or presentation. It’s a family-​style restaurant, not a Michelin. The food is amazingly flavourful, cheap, and filling. It’s really good bang for your buck.
They also have hotness levels if you want a little more sizzle in your food. Make no mistake, their stuff is actually spicy. I got the mild and drank about three glasses of water trying to wash it down. I’m a spice noob but usually I can handle mild. (You can also choose not to have any spiciness in your food, which is what I usually do). But if you are a spicy aficionado, their max spicy level is guaranteed to meet your standards.

Love this place. Look for the awning that says THAI FOOD not the name listed here. 78 $ for 4 adults, food was good and the 3 y/​o and baby were happy. So happy and relieved to find a place I could eat and relax and not worry about kids.

I like the ambience! First time here late at night with 3 other friends. It was pretty busy so we were given a table in the back. To my surprise this placed doubled as an RC car hobby store!
Pretty cool area for little kids too while parents have a bite to eat. I had the pad thai, extra egg and made it «Thai Hot». Mouth = fire
Service was a bit slow though. I remember arriving several minutes after another group of 4. We had our orders taken before them and brought to the kitchen before theirs, yet they were served first and left well before our food arrived. It got to the point when I thought we were forgotten about.
Still worth a try! I’ll definitely be back!

I came here in high school for the pad thai because it fairly cheap. It’s okay, but the service is super slow. It’s a family restaurant, so the employees are really nice, and they work so hard to make you feel welcome! I wish they would improve on the quality of their food though; it would make them a much better option in the various thai places in alameda.
After graduating, I haven’t been back.

First time coming here and i order the chicken pad Thai and thai ice tea
My sister order the chicken curry came with rice both dishes were good but the Thai tea was water down and no flavor at all but other then that it was a good experience.

Best thai roll I’ve ever had, Tom kha was delicate, not too fishy or too sweet, could have used a lil more lime leaf, but still tasty! The green curry was Perfect! All very fresh and perfectly cooked. The restaurant itself is shared with a racetrack, but who cares… good food is good whether its at a food truck in a parking lot or at a clean, cozy lil café with a racetrack in the back. Sheesh… rents are high on Park street!

I love this place. It’s mama/​papa but that’s where you get the best authentic, real food and wonderful service. Toon was our server and he was awesome! It’s a bit hidden but check it out… definitely worth going in. Not only that, they have an actual remote control race track for the kids while parents can dine or even adults can play too.
Try them out!

This place has a good selection and the taste is worth the price. It’s affordable dining with cute toys and games to keep you entertained. i had the Beef Salad which was pretty good. It was more beef than salad to be honest so you could have even ordered it with rice if you wanted to. The Tom Yum (is that how you spell it) was SUPER spicy and zesty.
It’s like a fast food thai place in my opinion. Its a good place to bring the kids. My boyfriend and I enjoyed their chess set which we played while we ate. That was cool. Overall 3 stars because it COULD be better, but the price is definitely worth it for what you get.
I would come here again. Service is good and fast :)

We just had our daughter’s 4^th birthday here. We reserved the back room for 2 hours which cost us $ 235 (it includes one hour of racing and a party host who attended to us and the track) We got to bring our own food and drinks and the kids got to race. The owner (I think her name is Aristad?) and the party host Tune were so awesome and made our party experience so much fun. There is also a play area next to the track with a couch, books, and a doll house for the kids to entertain themselves.
I highly recommend this place for parties!

In terms of food, I can only give it a so so rating. Thai food was nothing special here. However, the place itself is really unique. You walk in and don’t really think it’s much of a restaurant. It reminds me of those chinese jewelry, nick nack, furniture stores. Then you walk to the back and there’s the slot car racing. It’s pretty cool!
The service is really great, and judging by the people going in and out, it’s kind of a take out place. Still, slot cars were so much fun! And it’s relatively cheap too :)

Talk about random… Thai and toy race track? Typically I stay away from random combination restaurants I.e. Chinese food-​donut restaurants. It’s just so odd it makes me think the one niche product isn’t good enough to stand on its own. So when I saw the Unilocal post and photos I was not feelin it. Except it has all these positive reviews, mostly based on the actual food so I gave it a shot.
Seating is very small and the furniture is very minimal. Folding chair and table type of minimal.
I tried the basil beef. Sauce was good, nice and spicy. Not a bad portion size and price except the meat was chewy and rubbery. Can definitely tell they use cheapest meat. I also tried a noodle dish. I forgot the name but it was a garlic basil based noodle with broccoli and bell peppers and it was pretty darn good. Two plates for about $ 17. Not too shabby.
I will say service wasn’t the best. She didn’t come check on us once. We had to wave her over to ask for more water.
It has a weird feeling sittin there. It’s quiet and just odd. Don’t come here for a date.

Despite the name, Homeroom Racing Café is actually a Thai restaurant with track car racing in the back. Go figure…
The place is kind of hard to find because the restaurant name is actually written on a chalk board that rests outside on the sidewalk. What makes it more confusing is that you’ll see business cards for the name Royale House Cuisine.
You’ll find figurines and stuffed animals decorated all over the restaurant. You can see Big Bird sitting in the Batmobile from The Dark Knight in the glass case and a ninja riding a unicorn hanging from the ceiling. It reminded me of my childhood when my father would put our stuffed animals along the fireplace and staircase during the holidays.
The quirkiness, the food, and the price point are what bring people back to this place. You can order several things on the menu and still be under $ 10 a person. Service was kind of slow but I didn’t mind since it gave me time to play with the track cars with my niece. FYI — it’s $ 15 for every 15 minutes.

Surprisingly good food for reasonable prices. It is not a place where I expected to food to be decent. That’s for sure.
Rating:
Food: 4
Service: 3
Price: 3
Overall: 3
Enjoyed it. Will come back again.

Ok, first off this place is unique. I don’t know how else to describe it.
It combines Thai food (which I love) and slot car racing (which my siblings love). So it makes for the perfect place to grab a bite to eat and the kids can have fun while waiting for their food.
Came here last Friday and it’s a small place. The back area is occupied by a HUGE race track. It’s $ 5 for 15 minutes, which at first I thought was pricey, but after seeing how much fun the kids were having, I think it was well worth it.
Now onto the food. The food here was far better than I expected. I might go as far as saying the pad thai here was some of the best I’ve had recently. For starters it was cheap, something like $ 7 – 8 for a huge portion. Tasted good and had a sizable number of shrimp. The number of shrimp is usually how I compare different pad thai’s and I find that most places give 4 – 6 shrimp in an order. Homeroom gave me 8! That’s the most I’ve ever counted, and I’m not sure if I was just lucky, they liked that I paid for a couple rounds of racing, or just because that’s the standard number they give out. Regardless, I was impressed by the number and the overall deliciousness of the food.
My girlfriend ordered the yellow curry, and from what I tasted, it was amazing. So amazing in fact that she backed out of her offer to split each of our dishes, and ended up hoarding the yellow curry all to herself.
So if you’re in the area, I highly recommend coming and trying out Homeroom. It’s DEFINITELY kid friendly and just a unique type of restaurant.
I would advise what time and day you decide to come though, they’re closed on Mon and Tue currently, and parking gets problematic around the 6−8pm time frame given that it’s on the busiest street in town.

After a fabulous day aboard the USS Hornet, our little party was pretty hungry. We’d heard of a little hole in the wall that served a healthy dose of Thai food and slot car racing all in one and, as general fans of all things Thai and car-​related, absolutely had to try it. It’s a little tricky to find at first, but when you see the Thai food combined with the photo of the 911 GT1 in the window, you know you’ve arrived.
As for food, everything on the menu was truly affordable and generally under $ 10. I ordered the red curry which was quite good and full of chicken and veggies. Though it wasn’t a huge portion, it was just right for what I wanted.
After dinner though, the fun really kicked into high gear in the back of the restaurant where there was a long slot car track. My buddy and I ended up spending half an hour and racing through the track and loved every minute. We’re one and one on the win column and will have to settle the score on a return visit. It’s $ 5 for 15 minutes using the house cars so it’s inexpensive fun after a good meal. I can see myself buying my own car and getting in on the action!
Service was really nice here, but I’d say maybe a little too attentive and interrupting at times. I loved the prices, slot cars, and variety in the food and if I lived in Alameda, would be a place I visited often. It’s one of those great, off the beaten path combos you’d have to be crazy to combine, but it works! Guess my buddy and I will be back to see who the best drive is!
Food: ⁸⁄₁₀
Service: ⁸⁄₁₀
Price: $
Atmosphere: ⁷⁄₁₀