jimswside wrote:the sausage appetizer you mention sounds good, next time.

Not ordering grilled Thai sausage was a misstep on my part, I may have to bring Thai sausage to the June BBQ to make up. Even without Thai sausage it was a terrific meal, Elephant Thai was hitting on all cylinders in particular papaya salad.

Enjoy,
Gary

Finally got my pics downloaded from Mondays meal:

shrimp rolls:



larb chicken:



pad woon sen(I think):



papaya salad:




crab fried rice with 4 eggs:



shrimp nam prik pao:



fish sauce et al:



dessert:





great meal, missing the chive dumpling pic, cant wait to go back here.

edited to add corrections on descriptions for a couple pics.

Jim,

What dish did the chili oil come with? I have been here at least a dozen times, and I have never seen this.

Also, what was the last dessert?

CM2772 wrote:Jim,

What dish did the chili oil come with? I have been here at least a dozen times, and I have never seen this.

Also, what was the last dessert?

the chili oil was something Gwiv asked for on the side. I didnt try any of the after dinner sweets so I am not sure what it was exactly.

jimswside wrote:unknown shrimp dish:

"Unknown" shrimp dish is Shrimp Nam Prik Pao (shrimp in chili paste sauce w/grilled onions and bell peppers).

CM2772 wrote:What dish did the chili oil come with? I have been here at least a dozen times, and I have never seen this.

Not chili oil, no oil involved, one of the family of Nam Prik Ann of Elephant Thai serves when appropriate to customers she knows like heat and funk. In this case it was served alongside Thai style crab fried rice and was a mix of fish sauce, lime, chopped chili, garlic, red onion. Very tasty.

Dessert was flaky baked pastry filled with lightly sweetened red bean.

G Wiv wrote:

jimswside wrote:unknown shrimp dish:

"Unknown" shrimp dish is Shrimp Nam Prik Pao (shrimp in chili paste sauce w/grilled onions and bell peppers).

CM2772 wrote:What dish did the chili oil come with? I have been here at least a dozen times, and I have never seen this.

Not chili oil, no oil involved, one of the family of Nam Prik Ann of Elephant Thai serves when appropriate to customers she knows like heat and funk. In this case it was served alongside Thai style crab fried rice and was a mix of fish sauce, lime, chopped chili, garlic, shallot. Very tasty.

thanks for the clarification on those two Gary, the shrimp nam prik pao was great as was the fish sauce mix.

Just adding that the garlic pork is very good and not a very hot dish, though I suppose (?) you could get it hotter if you wanted. It went down great with a beer. We also like the wrapped shrimp appetizer. I recently ate dinner there in a party of six. We had three appetizers and six entrees. We each paid $15 including tax and a generous tip. A delicious bargain.

G Wiv wrote:Not chili oil, no oil involved, one of the family of Nam Prik Ann of Elephant Thai serves when appropriate to customers she knows like heat and funk. In this case it was served alongside Thai style crab fried rice and was a mix of fish sauce, lime, chopped chili, garlic, red onion. Very tasty.

sorry Gary, would the correct word to ask for this sauce be 'Nam Prik" or is that the name of dish itself? that fish sauce looks phenomenal...

10 of us converged on Valentine's Day for a sensational lunch at Elephant Thai, which was precipitated by a nearby traffic court appearance by seebee and facilitated by some excellent pre-ordering by the esteemed stevez. Not all of these items are on Elephant's menu (in these exact forms) but can be requested from time to time.

I have to say that the bright, intense and fiery flavors were just bursting off the plates today. As much I've always enjoyed Elephant, this might have been the best meal I've ever had there . . .


Before lunch, G Wiv and Elephant Thai owner Ann pose for a shot



Tom Kha Kai



Thai Fried Chicken Wings



Thai Sausage



Chive Dumplings



Som Tum with Fried Pork Skins



Ann's Special Thai Grilled Chicken



Green Curry with Thai Eggplant and Beef



Northern Pork Stew



Crab Fried Rice



Dessert - Tapioca, Corn, Adzuki Beans



seebee tests the dessert's considerable viscosity

Thanks again, to seebee, steve and everyone who came out for a great lunch.

=R=

Great pictures as usual Ronnie. I really can't believe that I've never made it over to Elephant Thai despite all the praise on this board, and I'm disappointed I couldn't make it to this lunch. And I really can't explain my neglect. But those pictures (particularly the one of the Northern Pork stew) have me craving a visit.

Interestingly, it was hard to find a dinner in Chiang Mai where pork rinds weren't added to a salad or dip and I see that in your som tam. Given the rinds, sausage and stew, I suspect the owners of Elephant Thai are from Northern Thailand, as I suspect are the owners/chefs at the various other excellent Thai restaurants (Aroy, Sticky Rice, Rosded - not positive about Spoon and TAC Quick). I'm curious about that . . . I'll have to inquire.

BR wrote:Interestingly, it was hard to find a dinner in Chiang Mai where pork rinds weren't added to a salad or dip and I see that in your som tam. Given the rinds, sausage and stew, I suspect the owners of Elephant Thai are from Northern Thailand, as I suspect are the owners/chefs at the various other excellent Thai restaurants (Aroy, Sticky Rice, Rosded - not positive about Spoon and TAC Quick). I'm curious about that . . . I'll have to inquire.

Actually, Ann is from Bangkok, but her husband is from Northern Thailand. She makes a lot of the Northern dishes for him. The pork stew is one of those dishes and only available by special order.

ronnie_suburban wrote:Thanks again, to seebee, steve and everyone who came out for a great lunch.

Not sure how Steve Z sweet talked Ann into both Thai fried chicken and Thai grilled chicken, not to mention Northern Pork stew, all off-menu items, but that was one hell of a lunch. Not to say on-menu items are slouches, Ann and The Elephant were in typical perfect sync. Though that was some damn fine ordering by Steve!

Vastly enjoyable lunch, interesting conversation and terrific Thai, wonderful way to start the week.

Great idea Seebee, nice to finally meet you.

[edit to add]
Fantastic pictures Ron, really captures the essence of lunch.

Impressive Ronniie_Suburban pics (as usual) as we've all come to expect. Great lunch - many thanks to Stevez for setting it all up. Great to meet everyone for the first time, hopefully many more outings like this are possible soon. Standouts for me were:
Crab fried rice

Pork stew - Had a sneaky garlicky kick!!!

Isaan - I need to start experimenting with smoking / broiling Isaan at home if I can find a decent place to buy it retail. I was gobbling up The Elephant's sausage like crazy. (did that sound kinda weird?)

Chive dumplings were cooked perfectly - crispy on the outside, chewy/doughy just under the crispy crust

Green Curry with eggplant. Loved it.
Wait a minute, lol. That's almost every dish we had! Well done, Elephant. Thanks again to stevez. Hope to get together with the lth'ers again soon!

P.S. - Thanks for the offers to help me out in court, but after sitting in the courtroom for 2 hours, my name was called, and everything was dismissed in about .04 seconds- no fees involved. What a great use of time our court system has developed!

Giardiniera next time, I promise!

Just wanted to add my thanks to Seebee and Stevez for providing us with the opportunity to try so much fine thai cuisine! Seebee--we'll forgive you forgetting the giardiniera since you had to sacrifice your afternoon as the motivation for our gathering. Just don't do it again

Loved the green curry (not usually one of my faves but couldn't stop eating this one, even with all of the other abundance). Also really enjoyed the crab fried rice mixed with the fried egg--decadent!

Great seeing everyone as always...

I can't agree more with all who posted here-
Best Thai food I have ever had.
wonderful company, beautiful pictures...

My wife and I stopped by Elephant Thai one night last week. (Thursday, iirc). I'm not an expert in Thai food. I tend to order the same thing everywhere: panang curry with chicken. The panang curry I was served at Elephant Thai was the right color, but was bland and tasteless. I was quite disappointed.

We also ordered some edamame. It looked tired, and appeared to have had someone just toss some salt in the direction of the bowl - it was concentrated on a couple of pieces at the top of the bowl. My wife wasn't much more impressed with her dinner.

On the other hand, the mango with sticky rice was quite good. I'll note, though, that when I searched today for threads related to Elephant Thai, I saw that previous visitors got a plate that _looked_ a lot better. That is okay with me, though. I'll take an ordinary appearance and great taste any day over the other way around.

-jbn

Try my favorite, the garlic pork. I order it pretty much every time and it's pretty consistent. It's so good I feel like I am eating candy. We usually get the shrimp rolls or chicken satay appetizer and those are always good, too. I just finished up my leftover garlic pork from the weekend, that is the third meal I got out of one order. I just had to make more rice.

I see Elephant Thai is still a GNR, even though nobody has posted about it here in over three years. I've never been there but am considering going. Has anyone been there recently? Is it still GNR-worthy? I'm also wondering how it compares to relative newcomers such as Aroy Thai and Rainbow Thai, neither of which I've been to yet either. TIA!

nsxtasy wrote:I see Elephant Thai is still a GNR, even though nobody has posted about it here in over three years. I've never been there but am considering going. Has anyone been there recently? Is it still GNR-worthy? I'm also wondering how it compares to relative newcomers such as Aroy Thai and Rainbow Thai, neither of which I've been to yet either. TIA!

Not sure that it's a GNR, but it's definitely a TRSCTMH (Thai Restaurant Second Closest to My House). We order out a lot from there and it's very good, but it would not be a first choice if I didn't live nearby.

My family likes Elephant Thai very much. It is a small, genuinely neighborhood place. In our experience, the food is nicely prepared and beautifully presented. Aroy and Rainbow are great, but Elephant sees more of us. Dishes we like include the Tom Kha Kai, Isaan sausage, chive dumplings, and the Basil Duck. See what you think, and let us know! Also, save room for some ice cream from the Chocolate Shoppe across the street.

I was there a couple of weeks ago - my first visit. I don't recall everything we had, but our favorite item was a spicy vegetable dish with tofu (on the specials board). Seasoning was excellent and so was spice heat. Tom yum soup was also terrific. After that, some issues.

Som tum was tasty but slightly lacking in zip and totally lacking in funk. And the green curry was too diluted and thin - not sure if this was just a problem that night.

A visit to the Chocolate Shoppe finished a fine evening. And I'll happily return to Elephant if I'm in the area. Service was terrific. The only problem for me is simply that I live so close to several Thai restaurants I prefer. Not a bad problem to have.

I rant into Anne today and she told me that they hoped to reopen -- in a new space on the south side of Devon Avenue -- by the end of November.

=R=

Thanks for the update, Ronnie.

Not mentioned here, and to put Ronnie's update into context, Elephant Thai suffered a fire in March 2017 and has been closed since then. (Tribune story.)

Elephant Thai has reopened in its new location across the street from where they used to be. Yesterday was opening day, and they were completely slammed with both eat in diners (the new location is slightly smaller) and carry out customers lined up practically out the door. By the time we left at around 8:00, they were already running out of food.

A beaming, but exhausted Ann seemed extremely happy to be back in business. The cooking didn’t miss a beat and was as good as ever, though some dishes, like their excellent Issan sausage, won’t return to the menu for a few weeks while they get their sea legs at the new location.

I am very excited to see the return of this GNR to my neighborhood.

Elephant Thai
5353 W. Devon (New Address)
Chicago, IL 60646
773-467-1168

Good to hear!

And as an aside, this site is great! Thanks to everyone that contributes here. Moved to west Ridge recently and would have no idea this place existed otherwise