I was startled recently to see that we had not been to Bangkok Thai Deli in over two years. Along with On’s Kitchen, Bangkok Thai Deli had been one of our Thai mainstays in the Cities forever—we’ve been eating there since we arrived in 2007, back when they were still in their original, pokier location. I hasten to add that we did not stop eating there because we stopped liking their food. It’s just that the summer of 2024 is when we first ate at Hot Grainz, and they’ve done such a hoodoo on our palates that it’s been hard to go anywhere else in the Twin Cities for Thai food since then. But a return to Bangkok Thai Deli was long overdue; and so when other family business pulled us not too far from University Avenue last Saturday we decided to combine it with lunch at our old favourite with friends who live in the area. I am very glad to say that the meal did not disappoint. Here’s how it went.

It was a chilly, grey and drizzly morning in St. Paul and between that and the fact that the Green Line wasn’t running, Bangkok Thai Deli was not humming as usual when we arrived close to 12.30 on Saturday. Indeed, we were the first to be seated. I’m happy to say that several more tables were occupied by the time we finished our meal but it still felt a little jarring. I do hope that was an anomaly because the food is certainly still very good.

What did we get? We were a party of seven and got a number of things to share. First up, orders of chicken satay, deep-fried pork rib, and crab fried rice. All were rather good (though in the case of the chicken satay I am going on the word of the younger generation, who did not leave any for me to try). Next up were the ground chicken larb (I’d ordered the pork version but didn’t make a fuss when the chicken showed up), the yum kanom jeen (a new entry on their capacious menu since our last meal in 2024) and the pad ka prow with beef. The larb (which packed quite a kick at the “spicy” setting) and the pad ka prow were consensus favourites in this round. The yum kanom jeen divided people with its very strong fish sauce involvement. Me, I can’t get enough of the funk and enjoyed it thoroughly. Keep in mind that this is a noodle salad, signified by the “yum” in the name; the parenthetical “khao poon” in the menu listing might have you expecting a noodle soup.

Rounding out the meal were orders of green curry with pork and stir-fried spicy bamboo shoot with beef. The green curry was very good indeed but I may have liked the bamboo shoot stir-fry even more. It hit the nose with fermented funk but had clean, sharp, complex flavour in the mouth. It also packed a nice punch at the “spicy” setting. Now, I should say that the “spicy” setting is far from the highest at Bangkok Thai Deli. It’s really their M+ setting. The highest listed setting is M++ (very spicy) and when dining with people with very high capsaicin tolerances, you can ask for things even hotter (though you might have to be visibly Asian to actually get it that way). Other than the dishes that are mild by design we got everything else at either medium or spicy and were quite happy.

For a look at the restaurant, the menu and everything we ate, launch the slideshow below. And please accept my apologies for how crappy a few of the food pics are. My iPhone 13 developed this weird issue in the spring whereby fluorescent lighting sometimes randomly results in over-exposed and washed out pics. It doesn’t happen consistently and so I didn’t catch the fact that some of the food pics had this issue until the greedy bastards I was with had already devoured much of those dishes. In those cases I’ve included both the washed out pic of the served dish (so you can get a sense of size and presentation) and the better recovery pic taken on the older boy’s newer iPhone of partially/half-eaten dishes.

Scroll down after to see how much the meal cost and to see what’s coming next on the food front.

Service was friendly and present when needed. Cost? With the included 15% gratuity (automatic for parties of 5 or more) the total came to $154.89. We added a bit more to take the gratuity up to 20% and that took the total to $161 or $23/head for the seven of us. That’s already very good value but keep in mind this was food for at least one more hungry adult (we took leftovers home). If you haven’t been to Bangkok Thai Deli in a while either, I’d recommend you go. We’ll try not to make it another two years till our next visit. Though we also need to go back to On’s Kitchen—it’s been even longer since our last meal there.

Alright, next up on the food front will be another Seoul report on Friday. And then a Delhi report over the weekend. That’s the plan anyway.