King & I, St. Petersburg, FL

Thai is not usually one of my "go-to" cuisines and I generally stay close to the sidewalk and order Pad Thai when I do find myself in a Thai resto.  To clarify things further, I will in fact eschew chopsticks and eat with a fork when when I find myself "Thai'd up"...so take this post with a grain of salt (or a splash of soy sauce).

King & I is a cute nook on Downtown St. Pete's Central Ave. for sushi and Asian cuisine.  It's clean and serene with a fairly minimalistic atmosphere.  It was quiet when we entered in the early Saturday afternoon hours and service was prompt and pleasant.

Chilled green salads with ginger dressing were quickly dispensed, their zest and crunchy freshness belying the simplicity of their ingredients.

The appetizer sharing platter for two priced at $8.95 was massively generous and served piping hot.  Offerings included crispy fried shrimp, spring rolls, calamari and delectable curried crab rangoon...practically a meal in itself.

What did I order, you ask?  What else but the only Thai dish I know...Pad Thai!  Surprise, surprise.  My Shrimp Pad Thai offering was of lumberjack proportions and delish, providing a nice medium-hot afterburn on the tongue and plenty of fresh-tasting ingredients.  I could only eat half of it.

My better-half's Pork Fried Rice was similarly flavorful and laden with tender chunks of slow-cooked pork.

So...while I don't generally wax greatly enthusiastic about Asian cuisine (unless you're Zen Bistro or Yummy House), King & I proved to be a delightful and relatively inexpensive lunch ($49 with two beers before gratuity).



My blog entries contain the unmitigated, and sometimes unforgiving, dining truths and perceptions I experience as an ordinary restaurant patron. Every meal I post about has been fully paid for by one of the participating members of my personal dining party. I do not engage in the gratis blogger freebie dining events I'm constantly invited to attend and never will. If I ooze font-like love for a restaurant in my blog, it's because they totally earned it…not because they gave me free food or knew I was going to share the experience on the internet.