King & I Thai - Minneapolis, MN

We went to the King & I Thai restaurant in downtown Minneapolis. We were a little confused by where to go to get to the restaurant. We saw people seated in a lower garden area eating, but we couldn’t find the entrance to the restaurant and went inside this odd apartment building, where an old lady to go back down the stairs and turn right. The inside looked very nice and fancy-thai-like, but we decided to eat outside.

We couldn’t decide whether our waitress had tourettes, parkinsons, or had just downed a 12-pack of red bull, but we eventually landed on a kilo of coke. Let’s call her “Twitch.” Even the other tables were making comments about her. Seriously it was to the point where we felt like we could spit the words of our order out fast enough. I’m still laughing about it.

Our appetizer was a couple of curry potato puffs. I’m not a fan of curry, but these were quite good. They were served with sriracha sauce and a cucumber salad, which was the perfect combination to cool your mouth after the sriracha. Fantastic.

The Bangkok Pad Thai was by far the best pad thai of all time. Seriously, we all know that pad thai is the spaghetti of Thailand. Everyone makes it and you pretty much know what you’re going to get no matter where you get it. This one was waaaaay better than any I’ve ever had. Top- notch. Not sure what the secret was (can’t say it is ancient Chinese secret though), but it was incredible. I can’t use enough adjectives to describe it. Bright, happy flavors with super fresh veggies, chicken and shrimp. The chicken had a grilled flavor to it, which just added to the whole dish.

The Holy Basil Chicken was a wonder of modern culinary science. It said on the menu it was four out of four on the spicy ranking, so I asked Twitch, “Seriously how is it?” She warned me it’s really really spicy, and some people cry. Well, she wasn’t lying. It was the second hottest meal I’ve ever had (EE Sane in Milwaukee wins that honor). But impossibly, it had one of the best flavors I’ve ever had as well. Truly fresh basil and awesome white meat chicken pieces in a brutal sauce dipped straight from the River Styx. It came with white rice which came in really handy, except the temperature of the rice, tended to make things seem even hotter. So I had to wait forever for things to cool off. If I get this again, I’ll go to a 3.

Our candle-lighter/water refill waiter was extremely awesome and friendly. (That must be the best job ever.) Blonde guy with a prison beard – give this guy a raise. He was right on top of our refills and also offered suggestions for reheating our leftover foods with eggs (like a thai stir-fry) for breakfast. Brilliant!

We seriously thought about tipping our waitress with rolled up dollar bills, but decided against it at the last minute. Sometimes we have tact…

We will be back, fo sho.

Best 5 things
1. Best Thai food we’ve ever had – without question.
2. All of the wait staff were super cool and helpful.
3. Flavor combinations were complementary, not thrown together
4. Sitting outside with tube lights and table cloths was fun.
5. Menu had some really awesome things we wanted to try, including fun girly-drinks.

Worst 5 things
1. Waitress was clearly on coke.
2. Appetizer server boy would be sent out of the kitchen with appetizers and be expected to find the table that ordered it. We saw this 3 times.
3. Valet parking – some people love it. I don’t.
4. It’s below an apartment building, so if you eat outside, there’s air conditioner window units dripping and rif raf walking around (geeesh, I sound like I live in Edina, don’t I?)
5. There truly aren’t any more down-sides.

http://www.kingandithai.com