Patti's Kitchen Thai Street Noodles — Restaurant in Pinellas Park

Most authentic Thai food I have had in Florida! I just had lunch at Patti's Kitchen Thai Street Noodles in Pinellas Park last week. My sister told me about this restaurant. She is very picky with Thai restaurants because she is a very good cook. If Thai restaurants don't have authentic food, she won't eat there. She found this restaurant recommended in a Thai Florida group she belongs to. When she knew I was going to St Pete, she told me I should try this restaurant. I agree with her. The food was delicious. I ordered Kaprow with ground chicken medium spicy. My friend ordered Pad Thai which had 5 big shrimps on top and fried tofu. He told me he was a pescatarian, so he could not order the other things on the menu. I asked him if he could eat shrimps and he said, "Bottom dwellers!" I didn't say anything. When his food came, he was surprised to see the 5 big shrimps on top of the noodles. I asked the waitress to bring a plate so he could discard the shrimps there. I tried a little of his Pad Thai, and it was also delicious and authentic. The noodles were not overcooked. They were soft and flavorful. They used real tamarind sauce instead of ketchup to substitute for tamarind sauce like most other Thai restaurants here in Florida. For my dish, Ka-Prow, which means holy basil, they also used the real holy basil leaves which were hard to find especially right now after the frost just hit. I had no idea how they made this dish which I regularly made for myself tasted so good. My little sister also had no clue. She said their Ka-Prow beat hers by a lot. It's a mom-and-pop shop, family owned and operated. When we arrived at 11:03 am, the door was locked, but the waitress let us in a couple of minutes later. When I ordered my dish and my friend ordered his dish, the waitress said we had to wait a little bit because the cook was still at the market buying ingredients but she should be back soon. Her husband was already there but he only made the food on the other page. The menu only has 2 pages. The second page was for noodle soup type, not stir-fry. My sister said she tried Tew Ped Toon on the 2nd page, and really liked it. Even with the wait for the cook to return from the market, we were able to get out of there after paying for our food in just one hour. I enjoyed the food and the waitress was...

[UPDATED WITH PICTURES FROM 3RD VISIT] I'll have to start by saying that a restaurant must truly be EXCEPTIONAL for me to write a review. It takes me a long time to lay all my thoughts out on virtual paper and many establishments just aren't worth the effort. I apologize to the reader for blabbering, but that preface and the following details are required for you to understand how awesome this place is.

My wife and I visited Pinellas for the weekend and we went to Patti's kitchen for dinner on our first night. I ordered the Tew Nam Tok (marinated pork, pork balls, and pork rinds) with a side of BBQ pork... (yes, I love me some pork) and WOW! This is probably the best Thai dish I've ever had. SOOO MANY distinct flavors that all compliment each other perfectly. You can clearly taste that the pork was seasoned well and the flavorful umami broth was made by someone who knows how to properly integrate a variety of oriental spices. In the end I had some broth remaining and got some extra noodles to eat with it. EVEN THE SIDE OF NOODLES WERE SEASONED. My wife's dish was the same top-notch quality with a completely different taste. It is clear that the owner has put a lot of effort into creating the menu to entice the palate in ways of which one can only dream. We spent two nights in Pinellas and we went to Patti's twice. The second time I ordered the pad thai and as expected it did not disappoint. Once again, you are in a world of beautiful, intriguing, indescribable flavors.

On our second visit, the owner came out to greet us before we ate and he thanked us for our patronage. He and his staff were very friendly and the decor was very clean and cozy. The combination of the great food, friendly staff, homely decor, and affordable prices puts this restaurant securely into my top 3 of all time.To the owner I say: "keep up the great work and I can't wait to visit again next time...

So I finally got to try out this place and I'm not sold on it yet or agree totally with the first few reviews I saw on here. I think they were being overly excited with their reviews. I thought it was ok. I had the brothless bowl with the red pork. Sorry I forgot the name of it. The menu is very short so don't think you'll get a variety of choices. It is centered around the noodle soups. I liked it but I wasn't loving it. I also got the coconut cake to finish off my meal. Its a no for me. It's basically regular cake and then it's drizzled with coconut cream and pieces of coconut. A little disappointing on that. I have to say as well im usually ok with small places and bad decor as long as the food rocks but I think everyone I saw there kind of had the same reaction walking in. It's a carryout not a restaurant. Yes they have seating but it's not the best place to go if it's your first date or you are taking the family out to eat. It's a little off putting to be honest. A good example of small space but good comfortable decor is the ice cream shop that's next door. I thought their decor was a lot more inviting. Once again the food has to knock my socks off for me to overlook it. Not a biggie but it should be noted for the owners. Think about redecorating to make it feel more like a cozy restaurant rather than a carryout. I will go again and give it another go. There are other noodle bowls that interested me. So for now it's 3 stars but I'm hoping I can post more stars...