Krungthep Thai is the real deal

We've eaten here a few times before and had a pretty decent experience - not too expensive & pretty good food.  The atmosphere blows but most of the time I don't give it a shit if it's worth the experience.  I'm writing this now, blood boiling, because we just had the worst Friday night (!) dinner experience EVER at Krungthep, and the fact that we had to pay for it, makes me feel like I was just assaulted and robbed.

Friday night, walked in the door, maybe 10 people in the place, man standing behind the counter sees us, sighs and goes back to rearranging his receipts.  After my date and I exchange confused looks and maybe 2 minutes passes, counter man grabs two menus and says in the most disgruntled voice, "dine in?" - our reply, "yes...sorry to bother you".

That alone should of turned us away.  I mean if your host doesn't know how to freaking HOST - you FEEL UNWELCOME, at an establishment that is supposed to do the exact opposite.  The young boy waiter (never heard his name), beard-o, just pushed us over the edge.  After my male date apologized for ordering before me (to the waiter), stating that he merely wanted to ask for some recommendations, the waiters reply was, "guys, I don't care who orders first".  SERIOUSLY??!  Seriously.  I think we both turned red, appalled that we even continued to stay seated.  We were checked on ONCE, after our food had arrived (at separate times) and AFTER we had eaten more than half the meal - never asked if we needed more drinks, water, chopsticks, desert....JUST FUCK OFF.  

I overheard the waiter tell the table behind us he just realized he had never brought them their drinks - but "he took them off the receipt" - REALLY?  YOU DID?  how kind of you?  How about fucking comping them with two glasses of wine - or a desert??  This country wants to complain about unemployment and not enough jobs and how that's the fault of the president or the government.  I say it's in the hands of all those that own businesses.  I say there are plenty of hard working people out of work, and too many LAZY, ENTITLED, UNDESERVING people who have jobs.  Time for us to get some perspective.  Two people at this establishment brought the whole experience down for us - we will NEVER be back.  My only hope is that someone at the restaurant reads this, fires these two and hires two deserving unemployed.

I think authenticity is a flawed scale sometimes in the sense that there are so many regions in Thailand that the same dish is prepared completely different. What matters is what tastes good or remarkably good and the chef understands Thai ingredients and balance of flavors. To each their own. Cant wait to try it.

Krungthep is fabulous, I am soooo thrilled to have them in the Eat St. 'hood. We have plenty of Vietnamese places, Rainbow for Chinese, Peninsula for Malaysian, not to mention excellent German, Greek, Mexican, Tibetan, and so on. But not Thai, the closest was Amazing Thai in Uptown. I foresee walking over to Krungthep often ... and stopping for a cocktail at Eat St. Social after, as well!

I went to Nong's this week. Food was very good. Tomboy waitress stomping around, pointing, yelling, and throwing my receipt down to sign and then walking to back room was enough to say fuck it I don't need that.

I love this place. Maybe I missed it in the article, but Krungthep is CHEAP to boot! Pad Thai with pork/beef/chicken is $8. Want shrimp with that instead? $9. Seafood? $10. The portion sizes are a bit smaller than a lot of other Thai restaurants in the area, but it's more than enough for most people. I ordered a noodle dish and an order of spring rolls the second time I went and I had enough left over for lunch the next day.

Price and portion size are secondary if the food sucks, and thankfully the food was very solid every time I have visited. Despite the article diplomatically skirting around the authenticity question, rest assured: Krung is legit. They don't dumb down the spice level for bland Minnesota palates thankfully. I frequently cook with ghost peppers and habs, and Krung is the first Thai restaurant I can recall where when I ask for a dish "Thai hot" it actually came out with some kick.

So yeah, if you want to check out an extremely reasonably priced Thai restaurant with a very extensive menu (or "menus" since you get the main menu, the specialty menu, and then a list of daily specials on the white board) with no pretension, check it out. I plan on hitting it up once a week or so until I make a dent into their menu.