Back in early June I posted a quick write-up of lunch eaten with friends at Hot Grainz, the (relatively) new Northern Thai restaurant in the Sunrise Plaza on University Ave. (where else?) in St. Paul. At the end of that review I noted that we’d be back soon. For a change, I am not a liar. We’ve actually been back for lunch twice this summer, most recently late last week. Here is a quick writeup of both meals. Spoiler alert: we loved both of them and I think I am ready to pronounce Hot Grainz the best Thai restaurant in the Twin Cities, even though we just also ate a very good lunch at Bangkok Thai Deli in July. Is this too high praise? Should I wait till we’ve gone back again to On’s and Krungthep Thai? Probably; but I didn’t get where I am today (nowhere) by being temperate.

We learned two important lessons at our first lunch at Hot Grainz in May. First, don’t go for lunch on a weekend because their dining room is tiny and you are probably going to have to wait. Second, don’t go in a group of more than four because you can’t pull tables together in that dining room (I believe I mentioned it is small) and even if you can get two tables, they will probably not be together. Accordingly, on both our visits (in July and again last week) we went for lunch on weekdays and on both occasions it was just the four of us. We had no trouble getting seated right away.

As a reminder, you can’t sit down till you’ve ordered your food at the counter (after scanning a QR code and placing the order online) and paid for it. At that point you are told which table you should sit at. You then get your plates and cutlery and water from a table in the dining room and sit down to wait for the food, which shows up, a dish at a time, as soon as it is prepared. And then you are very happy.

What made us happy at these two meals? This is what we got at the first lunch, when we were set on trying dishes we had not had at the first meal (very difficult as we’d really loved some of them a lot): first to come out was the Khao Mun Gai or steamed chicken over rice. It was very good, if not outstanding like the Khao Kha Moo that we’d got in this genre at the first meal. Next up was the Guay Tiew Nam Tok, their take on boat noodles. This was rather good, one of the better versions in the cities. Next to arrive were the Chicken Wings. You get a large number of wings to the order and they’re fried to a perfect, seasoned crisp. We got the tamarind dipping sauce on this occasion and it was a great match.

Then came a dish that almost killed me: Bah Mee Moo Daeng, egg noodles tossed in a spicy sauce with pork & shrimp wontons and bbq pork. It was great. Why did it almost kill me? Because we got it at the highest heat setting and it was lethal! If you belong to a Facebook food group, chances are good there’s a guy on it (let’s face it, it’s always a guy) who can’t stop going on about how much he loves hot food and how it bugs him that no Asian restaurant will serve him hot food. Well, send him to Hot Grainz and let him try his luck. Finally, we got the dish we’d most been hoping to try in May: the Northern Thai classic, Khao Soi. Wouldn’t you know it, it was very good but didn’t strike us as being better than the better versions elsewhere in St. Paul. Two smoothies, mango and strawberry, closed out our order (and boy did I need big slurps of that mango smoothie to put out the fire in my mouth from the Bah Mee Moo Daeng).

At the second lunch we tried a few more dishes we had not had at the first two lunches but also got some we’d previously enjoyed a lot. The repeats were the Khao Kha Moo (steamed pork knuckle over rice) that we’d really liked at the first meal and the Chicken Wings, which we’d really liked at the second—though this time we got it with the sweet chilli dipping sauce which might have been even better. The rest of the dishes were as follows: Pad Prik Gaeng, a stir-fry of long beans in curry paste (we got it with delectably crisp pork belly); Pad Pak Goong or stir-fried morning glory greens (we got it with shrimp); Yum MaMuang or sour mango salad; and the KaNom Jeen NamYaPa. The two stir-fries and the mango salad were both dynamite—we went through them at a scarily rapid rate. KaNom Jeen is a Northern Thai red curry with rice noodles etc. On our first visit we’d got the KaNom Jeen NamNgiaw with pork, chicken feet etc. and quite liked it. This time we got the KaNom Jeen NamYaPa which features fermented fish paste and fish balls along with more chicken feet. It was good but we didn’t like it as much as the other stuff on the table. Only one smoothie this time and this time it was passionfruit.

Launch the slideshow below for another look at the space and at everything we ate. Scroll down to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next.

Somewhat unusually for me, I did not save the bills from either meal. But as I recall, both were in the $85 region with tax and tip. Which is very good value for four people for the quantity and especially the quality. We will for sure be back again before too long.

Okay, what’s next on the food front? Some Northern California food reports. I hope to have one on Thursday or Friday and another on Sunday. Next week’s Twin Cities report will feature lunch at Godavari, my current favourite Indian restaurant in the Twin Cities metro.