Kinara Thai — Restaurant in Portland

I’ve been pleasantly surprised with a few thai places i’ve had in portland, but kinara many dishes tasted completely different and lacked flavors and spices. With all the rave reviews i was caught off guard by the bland dishes that only had one flavor…sugar. Tasted completely different from all the places i ve had on my many culinary trips to thailand. Even the bad, very westernized thai restaurants here have more flavors and complexity than the dishes of kinara. I ve had alot of great food in thailand and also had alot of good and bad thai food around the world. But the top three worst thai dishes i ve ever had were from kinara tonight. Inedible dishes: -drunken noodles: the noodles were cooked wayyyy too long which made the entire dish extremely soggy and disgusting. I cant remember the last time i had noodles with this bad texture and overcooked! Had very mediocre flavor. -Pong ga ree prawns: wayyyy too sweet. Thats all you can taste in this dish. -green chicken curry: another dish that was wayyyyyy too sweet. Another dish that all you could taste was an overkill of sweetness. Mediocre dishes: -green papaya salad: nothing to write home about. Needed more acidity. At least this dish was edible. -Lettuce wrap larb: the flavor and seasoning of the ground chicken was good and pretty authentic. However, the ground chicken was so dry that it made this dish pretty bad. If they cooked the ground chicken better this dish would have been great. Good dishes: -Nom jean pla: this was the only dish that they did an authentic job cooking and had different flavors and spices, similar to tastes that you’d find in a restaurant in Thailand. I had to pour this sauce into other dishes to save...

We love Thai food. It has been a staple for us, for years. We moved to Portland, OR (from Seattle) 2 years ago - and have been trying various restaurants since then to find our 'Thai Home'.

Tonight, we hit the jackpot when we tried Kinara Thai. Not only did they accept our online order, 30 minutes before closing (we don't usually do that) - BUT, the food came hot, fresh & flavorful.

Kinara's blend of seasoning in every dish kicked it over the edge to a 5-star rating in our book. Super generous servings (true enough) - but the flavor profile was in our top 5 of all-time (and we are 50+ years old). We can't wait to visit in person (based on the reviews about the ambiance).

Next time we order, we'll report on specific dishes - but suffice it to say, YOU WON'T BE DISAPPOINTED! The quality...

More and more I'm beginning to think when it comes to Portland, Oregon Thai food can do no wrong and I know that's not literally true. Because everyone can have an off day. But in these single meals, if they are anything to go by then, dining at this restaurant is an amazingly easy choice. If you're going here, you're going for Thai food and the food was delicious. The price was competitive and the Thai iced tea made me want more. If you're looking for a reason to not want to spend money at this restaurant, I can't give it to you. In all honesty, I'm sure it's like every other restaurant I've been to. It's not magic. It's a lot of hard work and dedication to craft and it's not magical in any way but at the end of the day for me an amazing Thai meal is magic because of the hard work...