HOT GRAINZ - Thai Street Food — Restaurant in Saint Paul

One of my go-to for Thai food. I love the food and everything, but my past few experiences have not been so great at all. I noticed that to-go orders take priority over dine in orders.

We ordered our food and as usual, there was a wait time so we waited about 30 minutes before getting a table as it was pretty busy. At this point, we have already paid, as you need to pay for your food to get a table. Orders that were placed AFTER us for to-go were already completed. The customer who sat down 15 minutes before us got all their food and dined and received their to-go orders BEFORE we got our food. We did not receive our food until all the to-go orders were done. How did we know it was done? We can hear them stop running around the kitchen and the music was turned back on. We waited over 1.5 hours before we were told they were working on our food. We still had to wait ~20-30 minutes before we received our food.

I doubt that all these to-go orders were placed before us because it seems like they have a system where they will see orders as it comes. I will still order from here, but I doubt I will dine in again.

I definitely think this place needs an upgrade or to have more employees to keep up so that customers are not waiting hours to get their food. They can also do like fast food, work on one to-go order and then work on a dine-in order. But instead, to-go orders take such high priority that dine-in customers end up having to wait. We only waited because we gave them the benefit of the doubt that they were busy, we already paid, and maybe they will be done soon. Had we known that we will wait ~2 hours for our food, we would have went somewhere else cheaper with...

This is not a dine in option anymore. We arrive and saw the sign no dine in. Really, you guys should have post it in your google page to let people know that there are no more option for dine in.

So we ate the restaurant next to it, but we want to try the boat noodle and papaya salad so we order to go. I should have not done that as the food I order isn’t to my liking. My boat noodle isn’t taste like boat noodle. I tried most Asian restaurants that had boat noodle in the twin cities. Even some places are more salty I can still finish eating it. This is the first one I could only eat not even half and just throw away. The meat is hard and feels like old meat, the vegetables that come aren’t regular come with boat noodle, the soup isn’t the right taste and also salty. My ice coffee is just plain water and little coffee. I hardly taste coffee. The only thing is ok to eat is papaya salad.

The worst is that they charge me fee that I don’t know what the heck is that fee is. My total supposed to cost only $28. I give tip $4. So $32 total but on my credit card it charge come up to $35.81, when I go swipe my card. I didn’t look at what going on with charge as she click click and done. If you tell me that pay card is to be extra charge, I pay cash but how many percentage that you charge people that pay card? 10%?

Not going again and so I wouldn’t recommend this place to people. I like helping Asian restaurants as im Asian and doing this kind of business is hard but with the way you guys doing this that isn’t work for me.

Boat noodle (guay tiew nam tok) $13 Tum Thai (papaya salad)...

NEW LOCATION: They relocated to West 7th St as of 5/12/2025 (if not the exact date then it’s either a day before or after), which is closer to home for me so we finally got to try it on a day I was off haha. It was confusing trying to find it because the door was propped open as they were unloading groceries so we didn’t see the suite number on the door. It was almost 11:30am so they were still opening up. There was no signage outside to indicate their restaurant and I saw someone driving around looking for them but ended up driving off since she couldn’t find it. I did ask and they will have a sign as soon as they can. It’s in the corner spot by Phil’s water station, up a small set of outdoor steps and the door has a small 12 on it for suite 12. There’s two ways to enter, but the other set of doors on the other side weren’t unlocked at the time but after we got in, some people were able to enter that way. They take mobile orders even if you’re dining in so they have QR codes all throughout their space. They would like to have their customers be self sufficient with ordering on their own and will have Kiosks for ordering at some point in the future.

As for the food, it’s pretty good and we’ll probably come back here again! My husband got Pad See Ew with a tablespoon of pepper and chicken for protein. I got Pad Ka Na with crispy pork belly. They don’t list it but it does come with a small bowl of regular rice. I didn’t ask about switching for sticky rice but might next time and will see how much more that could cost. Otherwise, a side of sticky...