Krungthep Thai — Restaurant in Saint Paul

If you are hankering for excellent authentic Thai food, but aren’t up for a 14 hour flight to Thailand, you should head out to Krungthep Thai restaurant conveniently located in St Paul on Rice St just off Maryland Ave.

Krungthep serves up wonderful authentic Thai food, loaded with plenty of fresh spices, protein and veggies. Their menu and recipes are similar to their parent restaurant Bangkok Thai Deli on University, in a more relaxed, upscale setting.

There aren’t many Thai places that use such fresh, high quality ingredients and Thai spices. I’ve been all over the US at Thai places that are stingy but OK, Krungthep is completely in another class. It’s like fine dining in Thailand. From the flavors of little Thai eggplants to young green peppercorns, to fresh lemongrass and Thai chilis, Krungthep offers the authentic Thai taste you are likely missing at other places. The spices are there and they can adjust the spicy heat as you like, from mild to super hot (M++). Watch out for the Thai salads though, they are always one step hotter than you’d think!

We’ve been dining at Krungthep enough to have favorites; their fresh spring rolls are the gold standard, as is their outstanding Roasted Duck Curry (M+ spicy heat for me, lots of roast duck, fresh Thai basil, tomatoes, Thai eggplant, green pepper and kaffir lime leaf, in a creamy curry broth, I have them leave out the pineapple to fine tune it), Pad Woon Sen cellophane noodles, Tom Yum soup, Shrimp in Lemongrass salad (fine sliced lemongrass, shallots, green onion, mint, cilantro, cashews… Amazing!), and their Garlic Stir Fried veggies (simple, but WOW!). ANd we’re always discovering something new in their extensive menu, at our last visit we noticed fabulous smells from another table, so we ordered the Sizzling Steak and Papaya Salad. Really really nice steak sizzler plate with seared veggies on the side absorbing the steak juices, delish!

Enough said, it’s GREAT Thai food with an extensive menu. You’ll find something to please, for sure.

They’re...

Me and my sisters decided to go eat here today. When we got inside, they seated us. Mind you, there were 5 of us. One waitress only brought us 3 cup of water. Then later brought another one. Then after that brought an extra one after we had to ask for another one since there was 5 of us. When they brought the 4th cup, the lady gave us 1 straw. When they brought the 5th cup, they gave us only 1 more straw. We had to ask for 3 more. Food came out in about like 10-15 mins. Pretty good I would say as we ordered the chicken pad Thai medium spicy, beef pad Thai medium spicy, N35, boat noodle, chicken pad krapao mild, and medium spicy Lao papaya. What they brought to us was, chicken pad Thai mild, beef pad see ew non spicy, beef boat noodle, N35, medium spicy kao papaya, and mild pad krapao. My pad see ew was not spicy at all, the chili flakes on the side were no helpful. I loved the Lao papaya salad medium spicy, although my sisters all agreed that it was a little bit on the fishy side from the fish sauce. And the beef pad see ew was very good, not too overly flavored. The pad Thai was okay, the noodle was the very cheap noodle for pho that was not good. It was too much overcooked and flavor wasn’t really there, just sweet. The boat noodle was on the sweeter side. N35 was great. Pad krapao was okay, chicken was dry for me, but one of my sister likes it. Overall, service was a 2/5, food was a 3/5 and atmosphere was a 3/5. I wouldn’t recommend the pad Thai and beef boat noodle. The pad Thai and pad see ew along with the pad krapao was expensive.the portions for dine in are pretty good. But the to go portions are much smaller in size. I would recommend to order in store then...

We've been there twice so far. The first was on their opening day and I did not feel it was appropriate to review this restaurant on their first day in business. It is very nice to have a restaurant within a couple blocks of our house.

Our first time to this restaurant I ordered the Black Pepper Spaghetti with Steak. I was told the steak was unavailable so I changed it to chicken. I was brought out Curry Linguini with Crab. I didn't complain and it was actually very good. My wife had Chicken Pad Thia. She liked it very much. We also had fried tofu and egg rolls as an appetizer.

The egg rolls were the size of a man's middle finger. The majority of the egg rolls consisted of the wrapper with only a very small portion of filling. But they were very tasty.

The ambiance is most similar to a Perkins. Very bright with little decor. The staff are very polite.

During our second visit my wife ordered the Pineapple Fried Rice, I again ordered the Black Pepper Spaghetti with Steak and we had the Thia Beef Jerky as an appetizer. The appetizer and my wife's entree were brought out at the same time. I was told there was a problem with my entree. It arrived about 7 minutes later.

The food was fabulous, again. However the prices do seem quite high for the area. Both my wife and I agree that in order for the locals to support this restaurant, the prices need to be lower. $2.50 for a fountain soda and $10 for Fried Rice is expensive for the North End. Heck, $17 for a spaghetti dish with approximately 1.5 ounces of Rib Eye is very expensive. The ambiance has to improve for this to be a destination restaurant for people outside...