Northwest suburban Thais

More Thai restaurants are opening in the northwest suburbs. Here's a quick rundown of places we've visited lately. While all of these eateries provide well-made, fresh fare, you won't find their menus as adventurous or authentic as Thai restaurants in the city.

altThai opened recently in downtown Arlington Heights' Evergreen Plaza. On our first visit to this, attractive, contemporary spot, the fire alarm went off -- a false alarm -- just as we were about to order. We sat for a few minutes gazing at delicious-looking food on other tables, but when the fire department showed up and it became clear that it was going to be a long time before the deafening noise could be stopped, we gave up.

Things were quieter on our next attempt. The restaurant bills itself as "An Alternative Dining Experience," but little about the menu seems out of the ordinary. It's notable that the majority of the dishes are described in English, with no Thai name given. The most notable dish we tried was called "Evil Jungle," a stir-fry of your choice of meat with eggplant, green beans, mushrooms, baby corn, sprouts and other veggies with basil in red curry paste." It was freshly prepared, but nothing special, and our request for "medium-hot" spicing turned out very mild.

Bangkok Cafe relocated to downtown Arlington Heights from a Golf Terrace strip mall in spring 2005. The storefront encloses a small, serene room in light woods, with lime green and burnt-orange walls and a soothing background of Asian music. We stopped in for a light, late lunch.

Our server, who appeared to be alone in the place, seemed rather brusque and unwelcoming, although we were the only customers. Later, we construed it was we came in at the very tail end of the lunch period, and the restaurant closes between lunch and dinner. They did a perfectly nice rendition of nam tok, grilled-beef salad with lemongrass dressing, not as piquant as I prefer, but quite edible.

Thai D-Lite opened seven months ago in a Rand Road strip mall south of Dundee Road in Palatine. The mall also holds a Tacos el Norte. We tried to order meang khum, translated as "7 Buddies. The best buddies of crispy coconut, peanuts, dry shrip and dices of ginger, challot [sic], lime (and fresh Thai hot pepper as an optional challenge). All together wrapped with green leaves and topped with our savory homemade sauce." But our server shook her head and said they'd taken it off the menu: "That's real Thai. Nobody knows that." She explained that much of their clientele was Mexican and unfamiliar with Thai cuisine and they couldn't keep the ingredients fresh. I asked if we could get the dish if we called ahead to order it next time, and she said no.

We had some very good chive dumplings, crisp outside and soft inside, instead, as well some unremarkable chicken satay. Our beef salad, ordered "spicy!" came with adequate heat and tang and a good amount of meat, not so thinly sliced as some. "Basil Lovers," a stir-fry we ordered with pork, had almost enough basil but could have used some chilies.

The menu here is big on items that lean toward suburban Chinese, such as orange chicken and sweet-and-sour what have you. I ordered a dish from the house specialties list, described as sizzling ginger duck and it turned out to be, basically sweet-and-sour duck. Mind you, for the genre, it was excellent, and had I been served something like it at, say, Kow Kow in Lincolnwood, I'd have been very happy: crisply battered, greaseless, savory, deep-fried duck in a sweet-sour sauce with a touch of ginger, green and red bell pepper, onion, tomato and pineapple. But since I was expecting Thai flavors, rather than American-Cantonese, it was disappointing.

However, the staff seemed very pleasant, and we'll go back, ordering carefully.

Meanwhile, Gumrai Thai appears to be about to open soon at the Shoppes of Avalon on Arlington Heights Road, near the AH train station.


altThai
847/797-8442
http://www.altThai.com
Evergreen Plaza
40 S. Arlington Heights Road
Arlington Heights, IL 60005

Bangkok Cafe
847/398-1989
17 N. Vail St.
Arlington Heights IL 60005

Thai D-Lite
847/776-9105
Boardwalk
1316 Rand Road
Palatine, IL 60074