King and I

1346 LaSalle Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55403
612-332-6928
http://www.kingandithai.com/

Category: Thai

Rating (Scale 1-10, with 10 being the highest):
Food: 8
Service: 5
Ambience: 8

Recommendation: Excellent! King and I is our favorite Thai restaurant in Minneapolis. It has an incredible ambience, great drinks, and delicious Thai food.

We’ve been going to King and I for over 6 years and have never been disappointed! Despite the new Thai places that have opened up in the last few years, King and I remains our favorite. It has great ambience…the restaurant is adorned with beautifully carved statues of elephants, Buddhas, and other Thai crafts. Entering it feels like entering a Buddhist temple. King and I serves standard Thai restaurant fare but we find their curries to be very flavorful. They use a mixture of herbs (basil, mint, kaffir lime), lemongrass, and chilies in their cooking. They have really good cocktails, their Mango Martinis, Mango Margaritas, and Passion Fruit Martinis are all very good. The mango martini is infused with fresh mango and is served with a dollop of homemade mango sorbet. Yummy! The Pineapple Martini was unimpressive, not enough of a pineapple flavor (the Stoli Dolis at Redstone is still the best pineapple infused vodka drink in the Twin Cities). The Mimosa was supposed to have ginger flavors but didn't. It was a good drink as well but didn't live up to its description. For appetizers, their Chicken Satay is incredible..served with a creamy peanut sauce (could use a little more spice) and sweet cucumber salad. The King's Special Roll, an egg roll stuffed with shrimp, crab, and pork had too much going on. It tasted great but didn't have any distinct flavors. It was served with three dipping sauces, which ranged from sweet to spicy and were all very good.

King and I offers a special curry every night, which has been simmered for hours to ensure that the tender meat is saturated with flavor. We like their Green curry very much, although we like it better with chicken than duck. The duck itself is not very flavorful and tastes very “meaty”. Other options with the curry are beef, shrimp, tofu, pork. As your server for the nightly special. Their Chicken with Holy Basil Sauce is out of this world. Excellent spicy flavors and the basil is always very sweet. Pad Thai is good but we would not recommend getting it over the curries and the holy basil dish they offer. The meat in the Pad Thai (Chicken and Shrimp) lacks flavor. We also really like the Roasted Hot Pepper Sauce with cashews. We tried this with beef. The beef was very tender and the dish had great flavor. It reminded us of curry dishes found in India. Gaeng Puk with chicken in a red coconut milk curry is very good. Dishes can be spiced up by requesting a spice tray. For dessert, try the Sticky Rice with Mango, which is a traditional Thai dessert made with Rice, Condensed Milk, and Mango pulp. After trying it on the streets of Chiang Mai, we think it is very authentic.

Service has been erratic, good at times and not so good at times. The last time we were there, our server disappeared for 15 minutes or so. However, the food arrives very quickly once you order.

$$. You can make reservations online at Opentable.