Kinn Kao Northern Thai Kitchen

FINALLY a Thai place that makes their spicy food truly spicy!! From the first bite I knew it was going to hit the spot. Really great food and killer spice. Can't wait to bring my spice-chasing dad here.

placed an order through doordash. the store gave my order to the wrong person. my dasher came in and told me they had already gave it away, and would not remake it. i called the store repeatedly to try and sort things out and they blatantly ignored me. letting it ring. the customer service was terrible on their part and my dasher even kindly offered to pay for it. i said no as its not their responsibility but i will not be coming here to eat given this experience. extremely let down on their poor planning. be wary placing take outs as they may not pay enough attention as to who they are giving the orders to.

OH. MY. GOSH!!! 😍🙏 Kinn Kao, we love you! We are visiting Portland from out of state and had such a long, hard day of travel. We ordered takeout from you, and wow, where do I start?!! The FOOD!! The food is INCREDIBLE - we are Thai connoisseurs, and consider your food among the best we’ve ever had. Bravo. But ALSO..!!! The care you took in ensuring our order was fresh, correct temperature, and well-presented was nothing short of above and beyond (ice around the homemade mango ice cream to keep it cold?!). You have no idea what such thoughtfulness meant to us after such a hard day. Thank you 🙏 We’d give you 20 stars if we could!!

Delicious northern Thai style street food served in a twinkly mirrored room. The loungy tables and music add to a discotheque vibe. (It's totally quiet enough for conversations though!) If you're familiar with Portland Thai food, Pok Pok is probably is probably most comparable, with the food at Kinn Kao being equally good, plentiful, and quite a bit cheaper. Looking forward to coming back for happy hour soon!

We walked in around 10:30pm on a Sunday. Felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. Beautifully decorated and very clean. I had to double check the location twice because we were going to Kinn Kao and the sign said Sweet Basil. The waiter made some suggestions right away and we settled on their Peek Kai chicken wings, duck larb, green curry, and their Trout with Mango Salad. All I have to say is that we have traveled many places in the US and Asia and this was probably some of the best Thai food we have had! Delicious drinks!

While I've had better thai food, this is the only place I've found in my 5 years of living in Portland that still makes their food spicy, recommend for heat lovers. Will return

Got delivery. Pad kee mao. Ordered medium spice. So hot I cant eat it! Ah the risks of ordering delivery via UBER eats. Way. Too. HOT. 😵

Raving about this place! First off, we are from Minnesota and have visited Portland several times. We love the diverse food scene here. We were searching for a place for Thai and it was close to 11pm when we walked in. First off, we were confused because they have a sign with 4 Thai restaurant names on it including Kinn Kao. We weren’t sure if we were in the right place. You HAVE to be able to climb stairs in order to access the restaurant. The restaurant was well decorated, light and airy. With white table cloths and nice place settings, we felt we were in a higher end restaurant. Later on, while enjoying our meal, it felt like we were having dinner in a Thai family’s formal dining room. I can’t say enough about the quality of the food here! We’ve traveled to Thailand and eaten all over Bangkok and Phuket over 10 days. While there, we often found ourselves enjoying the hotel restaurant food quality more so than most of what we found for sale on the street. Our American palettes are used to the rich Thai flavors we find here in the US. We had the pad thai, duck larb salad (duck is the best protein to pick for larb because it’s a fattier meat and the umami is on point), a chicken green curry dish, and a fried trout dish with mango papaya salad. I have been looking for a really good spicy green curry like you can find on most street corners in Bangkok and it’s been tough to find stateside. This one was pretty tasty. We were the only dine in customers this late in the evening but we saw at least 10 people come in to pick up take out! I believe they have a back patio but with it being winter and rainy, we didn’t view this area. I had one delicious rum cocktail that put me to sleep immediately upon arriving home. You should head on into this place when you’re in the area!