It’s been two months since my last writeup of a meal in St. Paul and somehow it’s been more than two years since my last writeup of a meal at Bangkok Thai Deli. I am happy to fix both oversights in one go. Since my last report of lunch there in May 2022 we’ve eaten Thai meals in St. Paul at On’s Kitchen, Friends Cafe (okay, that was really a Burmese meal), Krungthep Thai, Thai Cafe and most recently at Hot Grainz. I have in the intervening period proclaimed both Krungthep Thai (Bangkok Thai Deli’s satellite location) and then Hot Grainz to be perhaps the current best Thai restaurant in the Twin Cities. Well, after a belated return to Bangkok Thai Deli I can only say that it would be a mistake to pass them over too quickly. Here’s how our lunch there this past weekend went.

We were accompanied by friends we eat out with often. We were a group of six: four adults and our boys. We arrived at noon on Saturday to find the restaurant far less busy than it used to be in the pre-pandemic era. There was no scrum or wait for a table: you can sit anywhere, we were told. That’s not to say the restaurant was empty; it was indeed quite busy: but it does seem that even in the summer of 2024 they’re not yet fully back from the stresses of the pandemic. At any rate, we selected one of the larger tables in the middle of the dining room and quickly got down to business.

Their menu remains as voluminous as ever. Prices have gone up slightly since our last visit but remain quite reasonable. They certainly did not prevent us from ordering rather a lot of food for our not-very large group. What did we get? The boys started with their Chicken Satay (among their favourite renditions in the Cities, if not their very favourite). They also shared the sour E-san Sausage with the adults who also ate the Larb E-san (the cooked version) and the Mango Salad as our starters. For the larger fare the boys ate another of their favourites: Seasoned Pork Leg with Rice (with a lot of lovely braised greens). The adults meanwhile got to work on Flat Noodles with Basil (we got it with pork), Stir-Fried Chinese Eggplant (with shrimp and ground pork), Clams Pad-Cha, and Pea Tips with Thai Chilli Pepper Sauce.

How was it all? In a word, excellent. If I had to pick a few favourites, I’d say the larb and the mango salad from the first wave and the stir-fried eggplant and the pea tips from the second. But really it was all excellent. We got everything that was supposed to be spicy (that is, everything but the satay, the sausage and the pork leg) at the M+ Spicy setting (their second-highest heat setting) and we were sweating. But the flavours were excellent below and through the heat. We barely had any leftovers to bring home.

For a look at the menu and what we ate, please launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next.

All of the above plus two mango smoothies, tax and automatically added 15% gratuity (for parties of more than five people) came to about $177. We added on $5 to bring the gratuity up to 20% (I hope: all of the adults in attendance are liberal arts types). So about $30/head. Not cheap but very good value for the quality and quantity: we were completely stuffed (the missus and I skipped dinner). We’re not going to take another two years to come back. And if you haven’t been in a while you should go soon too.

Okay, what’s next on the food front? I am aware that I’d promised the last of my Seoul reports would go up yesterday and also that it did not. Please view this not as yet more proof of my unreliability but of my unwillingness to let our Seoul sojourn go. I will post that report this weekend. Before that I will try to get another long-promised report out: on the last of my New York meals from May. Let’s see how it goes.