Dib Sushi Bar and Thai Cuisine
Neighborhood Thai-sushi restaurants are ubiquitous these days, but it’s rare you’ll find one as polished as this Uptown storefront. White floor-to-ceiling drapes hang in the large front windows that flood the room with light; the sushi bar is sleek and black—as are the chopsticks. The smell of teriyaki lured us into starting with yakitori, smoky and moist; besides the usual starters (gyoza, gomae, crab Rangoon) there’s soft shell crab and hamachi sashimi with jalapeño. From the long list of maki—there are 37, including several vegetarian options—we chose the Black and White roll: superwhite tuna with avocado, cilantro, and jalapeño and splashed with lime, the flavors all nicely distinct. A Volcano roll (smoked salmon, yellowtail, crab, and octopus with spicy mayo) sold me by actually being spicy. The standard curries and Thai dishes are on offer, but we went with a “signature entree,” chicken katsu and grilled eggplant in a rich green curry, which came bedecked with a frill of deep-fried vermicelli. There’s a daily lunch special: appetizer, soup, and entree for between $6.50 and $7, and Dib is BYO for good. —Kate Schmidt
It was big news when Apinya “Ann” Leevathana opened the Elephant along a busy but culinarily humdrum stretch of Devon back in 2004—there still isn’t another Thai restaurant for miles. Though Leevathana is from Bangkok and wears an apron covered with pictures of red chiles, she isn’t pushing aggressively spicy dishes on her unsuspecting neighbors, but her interpretations of the usual suspects are well above average. Her egg rolls are crunchy and plump with glass noodles and garnished with large, fresh leaves of Thai basil. Chive dumplings, which can so easily deliquesce into soggy blobs, come out of her kitchen crisp and hot. Her hand-cut papaya salad gives a slow burn that shouldn’t scare off anyone (ask for it with dried shrimp, which is how Thais usually eat it). Leevathana really shines on the specials board: I had a salmon fillet, dressed in slivered ginger, that was cooked perfectly, moist and medium rare. She can be prodded to ramp up the heat too—the larb chicken and tom yum goong provided the burning ecstatic high I jones for. For dessert she has a few different bubble teas, another anomaly this far northwest of Argyle and Chinatown, but maybe the sweetest finish is when she bestows free fruit upon her customers, with a salt, sugar, and chile mixture to dredge it in, or plain fresh pears from her own tree. —Mike Sula
This restaurant stands out amid the Mexican bakeries and taquerias on far North Clark. The stylish lavender and orange walls are hung with kitchen utensils and a black-and-white photo montage of flowers; the cuisine is a Japanese-Thai hybrid. Platters of fresh, generously cut sushi, maki combination plates, and bento boxes are reasonably priced, as are relatively standard but nicely prepared Thai specialties (all under $9) like the mildly seasoned Seafood Delight with shelled mussels, squid, shrimp, and crabmeat stick tossed with fresh red and green peppers, napa cabbage, pea pods, and baby corn. For lighter appetites there’s a salad with warm ground chicken, beef, or pork served on greens; cold cabbage and shredded carrots topped with peanuts; close to 50 individual nigiri sushi; and some interesting maki like the sweet potato tempura roll (with green onion, cream cheese, and wasabi mayo). —Laura Levy Shatkin
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Indie Cafe serves Thai and Japanese food way above average in terms of quality, presentation, and value. The Andaman Salad, for instance—a substantial melange of shrimp, scallops, and calamari tossed with red onion, shredded carrots, and a sauce made with lemongrass, lime, and hot peppers—perfectly balances sweet, salty, spicy, and crunchy. The richness of the red curry and the subtle sweetness of the coconut milk in the Indie Signature Curry are likewise exquisitely counterpoised—it’s tempting to slurp the leftover sauce straight from the bowl when you’re done with the tender chunks of beef and potato. The sushi is delicious too. The Volcano Roll is nori rolled tight around thick slices of smoked salmon, yellowtail, crab, and octopus, with a luscious spicy mayo and speckles of bright red sriracha hot sauce on top. The individual nigiri, two to an order, are fresh, generous cuts of fish on delicately seasoned rice pillows. Everything is arranged beautifully: maki slices stand in a circle next to tiny mountains of ginger and wasabi and swirls of spicy mayo dotted with black sesame seeds; curries have sprigs of greens jutting out and frilly herb garnishes. —Laura Levy Shatkin
When Doungpon Morakotjantachote arrived in Chicago a few years ago, she was surprised to find that no one was baking for the local Thai community. So she started making cookies and sweets for one of the local Thai food shops. Since then, she and her husband have opened a full-fledged restaurant along the Western Avenue Thai strip, but as the name—Thai for “cloves”—suggests, sweets are still the real point of distinction. Entrees like pad thai and chicken basil are typical Ameri-Thai, sweetened up for the farang palate but freshly made and pleasing. The most novel item is alien-egg-looking sakoo dumplings, little balls of spiced chicken and sweet turnip coated in cassava, the same gummy starch used for tapioca and bubble tea. But the real reward comes at the end of the meal—at the very least you’ll want to sample the butter cookies brightly flavored with lemongrass, ginger, and sesame seed, or indulge in a dessert sampler made up of a changing variety of eye-opening tastes and textures employing traditional ingredients such as coconut, custard, and sweetened bean paste. —Michael Gebert
