Krittika’s Noodles & Thurst Lounge

I am a big fan of the duck rice, chicken rice, duck noodles, and the pig legs. They all incredible. Try to order the house specials.
Cons: there is an inconsistency in dishes. You may come everyday and find a different taste of the same dish.

Worst Thai food I’ve ever had. Might as well have been eating in a food court at a mall. We asked for our food to be mild, and it came out too spicy to eat. The waitress was flighty and never around.

HHmmmm…
Love good food! The crab ragoons were light and crispy! I liked that they used thinner noodles for their pud thai, along with a lot of frsh veggies.
My wife did not like their «famous peanut sauce», I did. It is not as creamy as most amer-​thai places around here. And it had a bit of spice to it.
Looking forward to exploring more soon!

Oh wow. Fabulous. Everything was seasoned and prepared in a perfect, yet simple kind of way.
Guay Jub is a must-​try soup. Beefy, porky, and salty deliciousness. I’ve never seen it on another Thai menu in Seattle.
Khao Mun Gai – delicious and simple chicken over cucumbers and ginger sauce. The simplicity of this dish is what i loved.
And of course, a little crab fried rice to round things out. You always need your fried rice!
Our server was friendly, and service was prompt. You could hear a comedy show happening upstairs, so the bar seems lively. This is one place we’ll frequent for some time.

Happy hour all day? That’s right.
5 dollar shots get you there cheap and quick. 5 dollar ANY shot!
Food is great, drinks are cheap, can it get any better?
Suz-​e is the best bartender there!

We stopped in on a whim and had a great experience! It’s a small place with awesome food. My daughter is panang curry fan and the last couple of place we tried disappointed her. The panang here was awesome and an excellent sized portion!
My husband is a «tender mouth» (a bit sensitive spice) and we’ve gotten so many flavorless or super sweet pad Thai dishes when we order it mild. This was flavorful and not too sweet with some awesome garlicky, mild spicy goodness.
We also got the Swimming Rama which did not skimp on chicken or spinach or peanut sauce!
We only got water for drinks and the refills for constant!
Overall, a very tasty, good experience with good unobtrusive service. I’ve been having a difficult time finding a good Thai place since I’ve moved to the north end of Seattle and now I’ve found it!

Happy hour here is amazing! $ 3 beers, $ 4 wells, $ 5 ALL shots, $ 6 ALL cocktails!
Great deals on drinks and good food too!
Bartender Suz-​e is the best!!!

My husband has been meaning to try Krittika’s since it was Charm and we were only dating. Last night we finally decided to check it out.
We walked in a little after 9:30pm. There were two tables with some people who obviously were friends/​family/​owners eating. A middle-​aged man directed us to a table, a little awkward since apparently we just interrupted his dinner, but it worked.
We were handed some menus, then we realized that they closed at 9:30. Oops! They never said anything and served us delightfully anyway, star for that!
We were promptly given an orange glass bottle of water, and they came back at the perfect time to take our orders. The atmosphere was friendly and relaxed, you could hear the music from the upstairs lounge. I like the look of the patio area for the summer too.
Our dinner arrived at exactly the right time (it should, since we were the only ones there). I had Swimming Rama, it was exactly the way Rama should be. Not oily, just enough peanut sauce, and properly cooked chicken. Something about their chicken was better than other places. Some of it had a crispy edge, and it was juicy. The spinach was also just right, still very fresh and lively.
Husband had Tofu Pad Prik King, which he very much enjoyed, though I think he liked the Rama better. I didn’t try his since it was 5-​star (he said it was sufficiently spicy too).
The total with tax (pre-​tip) was $ 15 and change. Not bad for a Thai dinner. Portioned well, I saved half of mine for another meal.
Service was great, very friendly and speedy. Hoping to make it a 5-​star review after another visit. My only qualm is that they aren’t open later on Fri./Sat. nights., especially the lounge.
We’ll definitely come back.

Krittika’s Noodles & Thurst Lounge serves amongst the most authentic Thai food in this city packed with so called «Thai» restaurants that dish out boring westernized gruel labeled as Thai food. I have fallen in love with this place. Along with Viengthong on MLK and (sometimes) Thai Curry Simple in the ID it is one of the few Thai restaurants in Seattle that actually serves truly original Thai food.
Recently, I went there with 3 friends, one who is a Thai national working temporarily in the US as an au pair, another who had spent several years working in Thailand with the Peace Corp and studying at Chiang Mai University and I myself have been going to Thailand 2 to 4 times a year for both work and travel since 1989. We all speak Thai fluently and are a group who know Thai food well. I ordered the Pad Khana Moo Gob which is a common street food in Thailand that is made with stir-​fried khana (sometimes translated as Chinese broccoli but is much more similar to a milder smaller leafed variety of collard greens than it is to broccoli) and moo grob which translates as crispy pork. Moo grob is chopped pork deep fried with garlic.
I was rather astounded at the previous reviewer who complained about the moo grob when I found mine just as delicious as that which is served from the vendor’s carts lining the streets of Bangkok. I would suggest to him to travel to Thailand sometime and try the real thing before ordering from the S menu (the Thai menu) at Krittika’s so he knows what he is talking about before he starts complaining. The food here is fabulous, it’s the real thing and it’s cheap. My plate of food and a soft drink totaled less than 12 dollars including tax.
My friends ordered the red pork over rice and pad grapao gai, also common «comfort» foods in Thailand. One member of our party asked that his dish be prepared in a special way and our friendly waiter and bartender had no problem having the kitchen accommodate his request.
The atmosphere of this place is pretty cool too. It’s laid back and unpretentious unlike the mega pseudo-​Thai places like Racha Noodles in Lower Queen Anne. Krittika’s Noodles & Thurst Lounge has a rather small dining room downstairs that was packed with diners the night we came so we went upstairs to the Thurst Lounge which is appropriately named for the guy who is a part owner and the bartender; Thurst. He is a local guy of Thai heritage who was extremely friendly and helpful not to mention entertaining. The lounge is simple and casual and hence lends itself well to friendly conversations and just a general overall relaxed atmosphere. The clientele in the bar upstairs tended to be mostly a younger hip asian crowd but a white guy in his mid 50s like me was as welcome as anyone. It’s a fun place.
I highly recommend Krittika’s Noodles & Thurst Lounge to anyone looking for really authentic Thai food and a pleasant all around night out.
I give it 5 stars without hesitation.

«Krittika’s Noodles & Thurst Lounge» is my most favorite Thai Restaurant in Seattle! Foods are fantastic! I’m Thai and of couse, I love Thai local food. Krittika has such a great Thai food. Great service! Especially, Thurst Louge. You will enjoy talking to a staff. They’re very friendly. Most of my Thai friends love to meet and hang out at Krittika. Also my American friends who went to Thailand many times. We love this place and we try to meet every weekend if we can. You won’t never find a good «Kuay-​Jub» (Thai noodle local soup with deep fried Pork). And not many restaurant that have this kind of Thai local soup. This’s the best ever! Not many restaurant has a good deep fried crispy pork. I felt like I was sitting and eating Thai food in Thailand. They’re also used real hot basil to cook Phad Kra-​prao. Feel free to ask me about this restaurant. If you like THAI LOCAL FOOD, you won’t never go wrong. I LOVE Krittika’s Noodles & Thurst Lounge! See you next weekend! :)

My friend told me that this place serves authentic Thai food, not the generic sweetened Pad Thai that is so rampant on The Ave. What I can say after this experience is that — never again.
My spidey senses start going off in all directions when we came in for lunch and there was nobody else in the restaurant. We all ordered from the S1-​S8 menu, aka the authentic Thai menu. When I got my S8 pork, chicken, and intestine (or maybe stomach?) noodle soup dish, I noticed that the pork had been deep fried, crucial information the menu omitted. That would have been alright — except all my friends suffered the same thing. Apparently basically all the S menu items have the same pork in them. The deep fried pork was essentially uneatable… it was deep fried so heavily that it tasted like deep fried nothing. One of my friends also got some Chinese sausage as part of her dish and guess what — it was also deep fried in the same way. I had some her sausage and it tasted like burnt crisp.
Moving on from the uneatable travesty that was the meat, to give them some credit I actually liked the noodles in my soup. They were also rolled up into little bundles, making it look like some sort of Asian pasta. I asked the waitress for 5 stars and she gave me a look and warned me about the extreme spiciness. Well guess what… it wasn’t spicy at all and tasted a rather Americanized sweet like most of the Thai restaurants on The Ave. So much for authentic Thai food.
Well what do you do when a man is down on the ground from ingesting falsely advertised deep fried pork? Why, kick him the balls of course. We just happened to be a party of 6 people and they charged us 20% gratuity. Now I understand if we had great service… but we didn’t. It was one waitress who stood in the corner looking down and checking her phone the entire time. She didn’t even need to pour us water since there were water pitchers provided on the tables. The most talked highway robbery around here is the UW bookstore making UW students destitute. I hereby decree that Thai restaurants charging absurd amounts of included gratuity to be a close 2^nd in terms of monetary robbery. Maybe giving undeserved gratuity is a national pastime in Thailand but here it isn’t. But that’s a rant for another time.
I guess this place deserves at least 1 star. My friend who recommended me this place said that last time she went, the meat wasn’t deep fried like what I experienced. And the pictures on the website also don’t show the pork deep fried like what I ate. My only guess is that they had no customers for a while and to mask the taste of the rapidly deteriorating pork they deep fried it as a trade-​off to mask the bad quality of the meat.
I guess this is what I get for betraying Banana Leaf. I’m sorry Banana Leaf, I won’t go anywhere else for Thai food again. I’ll never stray from your Americanized but delicious and cheap spicy food again.

Loved it as Charm, love it even more as Krittika’s & Thurst. Came here for dinner downstairs, then head upstairs for some drinks and entertainment. If the downstairs dining area is too full, they also serve the full dinner +bar menu upstairs. The staff is always very friendly and welcoming, the bartenders remember their regulars and treats everyone that comes in like old friends. Happy Hour never ends! How can it ever get better than that? I’m definitely what you call a regular here (mostly at Thurst).
My favorite is the Beef Noodle Soup, it always surprises me how it’s so filling! I am normally so stuffed that my husband has to finish it for me, much to his delight! My husbands favorite is always the Thai Style Omelet. Crispy, flaky on the outside and filled with meat on the inside. Whenever I’m at the bar I always order the Famous Thai Hot Wings and the Thai Style Beef Jerky. The hot wings are always deep fried to perfection with a crispy, crunchy skin and so juicy once you bite in. The Thai Style Beef Jerky is so popular that they always run out! You have to get there early to get it sometimes. You can pretty much order any drink your heart desires, but make sure you try some of the specialty drinks that you won’t find anywhere else.
I loved coming here during the summer because you have an option to sit outside. They also had live entertainment on certain days. But regardless of the season Krittika’s & Thurst is always one of my top choices when I’m dining out.
P. S. Great place to stop by before going out! Happy hour price drinks here! Who likes to pay $ 8-​$ 10 for drinks and shots? I sure don’t.

I remember the SuperBowl residing in this location. The duck soup I ordered was as I remembered. I different coat of paint, and an easier to read menu. The talk at the tables on either side of me (elbows almost touching), were positive. The wait is a bit long. Great place for small groups.

The panang curry with chicken is decent. I ordered it «medium» spicy and I have to say it was packing some heat. I’m admittedly a bit of a wuss when it comes to spicy food, but if you like things only slightly on the spicy side than I would ask for mild/​medium. For ~$ 9, portions were reasonable. I managed to stretch mine into two dinners.
My new favorite, though, is the «vegetable delight» with chicken — lots of healthy veggies, cooked just perfectly to that not-​too-​crunchy, not-​overcooked place! Yummy with the brown rice, and again, enough for two meals.
I recommend paying the $ 1 up-​charge for the brown rice, which is actually more purple than brown… sounds weird, but it was totally delicious. Take-​out orders are ready in about 15 minutes if you call ahead.

«S Marks the Spot»
In terms of the food, stick with the Thai Specialty dishes (S1-​S8) since they present offerings that are more «homestyle» than your traditional curries and noodles you can get at every Thai restaurant in town (pictures on their website). I’ve had the S1 which is boiled chicken and rice with a spicy ginger/​garlic sauce, which is a popular street food in Thailand that sounds deceptively simple, but is packed with an explosive punch of flavor. If you’ve never had it, it’s a nice intro although if you really want to see it done right, venture down to Portland, check out Nong’s Khao Mong Gai, which exclusively sells this dish in what is one of the indisputably best food carts within the entire city.
I’ve also sampled the S7, which reminds me of a traditional chinese preparation with perfectly braised pork legs which has small lean cuts of meat wrapped generously with chewy fatty goodness bearing a textural resemblance to pork belly and balanced nicely with earthy chinese greens and tangy pickled mustard greens. What makes this Thai is the chili dipping sauce which really wakes the dish up with a generous kick of heat but doesn’t leave your tongue paralyzed gasping for water or milk but only encourages you to dip again and again.
I can only comment on one of the curries (pumpkin curry with chicken) and I have to say it does not stand out amongst the several dozen curries I’ve had over the years at various Thai restaurants in my lifetime.
There is a Thurst lounge upstairs that plays clubby music and a nice outdoor seating with a nice fountain which would be great during a nice hot summer night, but given it’s location near a gas station and nothing too exciting in its immediate surroundings, I have not noticed there to be much of a scene here. I think had it been on a busy street in capitol hill or the U district, this place could really flourish. My other small pet peeve is the fact that the rice is slightly on the soft overcooked side in all their dishes. Nice firm fragrant jasmine rice would really perk up any of their offerings.
In summary, a nice takeout place for those willing to be a little adventurous and break the monotony of standard Thai cuisine for well executed homestyle dishes.

We waited so long to have our order taken that we almost left. Sarah and I had a discussion about whether «we had hit our limit yet» with the lack of service. I have not had such slow service — just to get our order taken, at that — in years. Can I pause here to let the reader know that there were only about 12 tables and had two servers? We weren’t sure whether we should even have ordered, since who knows how many years it would have taken for the food to come. And the bill. Lordie!
Sarah ordered her curry «hot» and came out «reasonably, comfortably warm,» which is not the same as «hot,» but at least it had some spice to it. The vegetables were crisp, so bravo for that. Apparently it was tasty — not great, but good.
When I asked the waitress what was in a cucumber salad, she couldn’t tell me. All she knew was cucumbers. Perhaps there is a language barrier there, but really though. Jeez. I ordered nothing because I had zero faith that the staff would be able to tell me if there were anything in the food that I was allergic to.
After we were done, we waited and waited and after a couple failed attempts, finally flagged our waitress down to get a box and a check.
I won’t be coming back unless I have nothing to do but waste time.
The only thing saving this place from a 1-​star rating based on the worst service I’ve had in ages is the fact that the vegetables in the curry were perfectly crisp.

BOOOS for all that root for AMERICAN-​THAI food here! i don’t know why americans like the «safe» choices of pad thai, pad see eww, and so on. i think they’re missing a lot on thai food!
friend of mine reccomended me to come here as he has been regular-​in for weeks. i didn’t expect him to come weekly religiously but, yeah he did. anyways, there are 2 krittika’s-s. one is in latona ave? btws, i spoke to the cook (she and the waiter has the best english among all) and she told me that the one that is latona was the original place. this place used to be big bowl, charm, and then krittika’s. what the heck, i could not care less!
as my thai friend RAVED about the thai menu (random msg on FB, telling me to come here), i went ahead and order. i got the KHAO MOO DAENG and GUAY JUB. first one is like pork orgasm, roast, bbq, and pork sausage atop of steamed rice, drizzled in sweet red sauce. oh mama, it’s soo nice as the roasted pork is deep fried. (blocked arteries, here i come!). it came with a whole boiled egg and pieces of cucumber. could’ve used more cucumbers as there’s not much greens in it. boiled chinese broccoli would be nice side though.
the second dish maybe gory to some of you but it is pork stomach, heart, meat, fried roasted pork, fried tofu, in broth. it has wide rice noodles in it too. broth was HEAVENLY, sweet with a hint of saltiness. the pork innards were soaked with the broth. could’ve used more rice noodles IMO, but it’s still alright.
i’ll come back soon to try all the other stuffs on the «THAI Favorite Dishes» section that they have in their menu! hahaha! btws, the web is not super updated. just come on in and try!
as for atmosphere, inside’s pretty small and it stink of fried stuffs. so if the weather permits and beautiful (like today) eat out and grab a beer at the same time!

New ownership and new menu. So far, I do not feel the soups are as good as Charm’s were. The spice level needs work — I ordered 3 stars and it was not spicy at all. No chile sauce at the table anymore either… what??? The Suki Nam comes with tripe, which was NOT indicated on the menu. I am not a fan of the texture of tripe so this was a bummer. Also the promised mushrooms were missing.
The pad see ew is delicious, some of the best I have had! But 4 stars was still not spicy enough. Hotter hotter hotter please!
My favorite dish from Charm, green curry noodles, is now gone forever. I has a sad.

I am saddened. * tear poetically rolling down cheek *
Charm was a very good restaurant, with a great menu and one of the best happy hours in town! Now, former Charm is called Krittika’s. There is a new owner, the menu shrunk, the food is not nearly as good, and the happy hour has disappeared.
I would like to point out some high points and low points but there really weren’t any. It is now your average Thai Restaurant.
A great 5-​Star Unilocal restaurant just turned into an average 3-​Star Unilocal restaurant.

Not just a name change from Charm, but a new owner — Tony (Hence the ‘T’ Lounge) from up the street, on the other side of I-​5, Krittika’s Noodles and Thai Cuisine.
Accordingly, there’s a new menu that isn’t bad. I got the Khao Mun Gai, chicken with cucumber over rice with a «spicy ginger sauce». Spicy enough to make a white girl stress, but not enough to burn her tongue out of her face. (That’s a ‘thumbs up’.) And the rice was somehow really good — basic, but really good. I don’t get it — there’s no chemical mirage; I asked, and received the answer: «We don’t use MSG.»
Service was very quick — I observed fast take out turn around, too.
Right now I’m giving the tentative, ‘A-​OK’ rating because it wasn’t fantastic. A vegetable broth/​soup was served as an app and it tasted like vegetables simmered in water — probably healthy, but not one that bespeaks a high rating. (Hail, fast food consumers! Healthy does not mean bland. You can hide low quality ingredients and ignorant cooking with chemicals and overseasoning, but why be contented with that which is ‘easy’, ‘cheap’, and ‘stupid’? Step up the quality and healthy means delicious. /​rant)
I’d also like to check out T’s lounge and few more dishes before I commit to a stronger opinion either way. As it stands though, and it seems likely to persist, this is a good neighborhood Thai place.