David Hammond wrote:

Vital Information wrote:The other thing I have to confess that bugs me about Yum Thai is the mixed welcome they provide. We are certainly known enough here; known enough that upon entrance yesterday, we are immediately warned, "no Chinese broccoli today." Yet, in a near empty restaurant, we were constantly confronted with whether we were ready to order. It's not the rushing that bothers me. It's that after all these years, the work with the secret menu, the "investigative meals" with ErikM, the Chowhound dinners, etc.; I am not looking for some medal from Yum Thai, but it bugs me that our relationship seems so stand-off-ish. It just seems that they do not want to let us embrace the glories of their cuisine. There is just no sense of sharing, and that is very disconcerting.

I'm with you. The vibe at Yum Thai is positively chilly. It's almost as though, because they seem to know me, they seem to like me less (hey, this happens ). I now avoid this place simply because I don't need the psychodrama. They have problems with me, and you, and other enthusiastic eaters who've championed this place in the past, okay, we're done.

rob/dave,

you do realize that they've changed at least front of the house staff? Happened in the summer sometime I think. this is at least the third iteration of folks there since i've been going. At first it stayed in the family, but i'm not sure with the most recent change.

With each changing of the guard it seems to take a little time for them to warm up to you/trust your tastes - i think they are worried that they'll be burned if is truly funky, but once they get to recognize your tastes they do warm up, and for us at least the food has been pretty consistently good. Of course, i don't usually eat there, just go in order and pick up the food to eat at my dad's nearby

santander - do you think the newer folks are from Isaan? I know previous owners/cooks were NOT and so we got no special love for ordering isaan dishes, if they are I'll have to change my ordering strategy somewhat.

We ordered out from Yum Thai night before last, and it was fine. Delivery is a decent option, and it saves me the discomfort of going to a place where I feel unwelcome (which, as noted, stings particularly in that we've given this place so much admiration over the years -- as VI observed, no medals required, but something other than aggressive indifference is).

zim, good to hear from you; hope you are well.

I try to get to Yum Thai at least once or twice a month; I went on Friday and was greeted by my first name and was provided a very pleasant service. Of course we have a cute five year-old son who loves Mee Krob and Gaeng Phet Bpet and the waitresses fuss over him, so that might make us more memorable...

I did note that Eddie wasn't in the kitchen and that some of the dishes on the Thai menu - our waitress brought us only the Thai menu - were ever so slightly different. The spicing and funkiness was toned down and the garnishes were a bit clumsy, but that won't deter me.

On another note, IIRC, Eddie said her cousin was owner / chef of TAC Quick. If that's true, I'd like to be adopted, pretty please...

mchodera wrote:On another note, IIRC, Eddie said her cousin was owner / chef of TAC Quick. If that's true, I'd like to be adopted, pretty please...

I believe this is correct - they didn't mention him by name but we were talking about favorite other Thai places in the city and they said they have family at TAC. Food has been consistently good for me from them throughout the year; it's my go-to delivery service, and they're usually quite sweet people.

I'm not sure how deep the Isaan connection goes, but can aver that they make my favorite Isaan sausage in the city. Not as funky as others, but a perfect balance with lots of delectable pork belly and citrus and good garnishes.

Sad news, I think for those of us who love Yum Thai. Eddie, who headed up the kitchen for the past six years, has returned to Thailand and word from the staff is that she's not coming back. As I saw it, she was the driving force in the kitchen and iirc, she woked along with Erik M. to translate and fine tune the Thai menu. She helped me arrange a dinner for sixteen in true Thai fashion and always came out of the kitchen to greet me and my family and friends.

Eddie worked at the restaurant and held down a second job at O'Hare with a major airline. I was lucky enough to spend some time in the Yum Thai kitchen learning how she made Yam Pla Duk Foo (Exploded Catfish Salad) and a few other off the beaten path "secret" menu dishes.

I'll miss her and her skill in the kitchen.

My wife and I used a Groupon for Molly Malone's this past Saturday.

I've lived in Forest Park since 2004. Not long after we had moved there I had gone to Molly Malone's with a friend to see a band. I don't think I had been back there since then so I was pleasently surprised to see they've redone the place and spiffed it up quite a bit.

They used to have a stage off to the right side as you walk in. That's been replaced with more seating. I'm not sure when they did this remodeling but it was like a completely different place.

I ordered an Edmund Fitzgerald porter and my wife, at the suggestion of our server, ordered the key lime martini. She ordered a couple of more of those throughout the meal so I'd say they were good. They had a couple of bottled Three Floyd's beers that I enjoyed during the meal as well.

For starters we went with buffalo mushrooms, bangers and mini-burgers (They had half price appetizers)

The buffalo mushrooms were really good. I'm going to attempt to make these at home. I think I can get pretty close to what they're making there. Really good concept imo, the mushroom texture works really well with the buffalo sauce. My wife and I really liked these.

They asked if we wanted cheese on our mini-burgers. We ordered 2 with and 2 without. I told our waitress that I'm lactose intollerant and asked if they could make sure to not use butter on anything they were cooking for me. She found out that the buns were made with butter. So, they made my 2 mini-burgers on french bread. I was very happy to have someone be so attentive to my dietary restriction and take the time to work around it. These were tasty little burgers.

The bangers were tasty as well. I saved a few of them as I wanted to eat them on some bread with mustard (which I did last night.)

For our entrees I got the caribbean jerk pork sandwich and my wife got the grilled flank steak sandwich. When the waitress brought us our plates I was thinking I'd only eat maybe half of the sandwich as I had filled up a bit on appetizers. But, I ended up downing at least 3/4's of this sandwich before I even set it down. The jerk flavoring really didn't come through that much but it was still a good pulled pork sandwich.

My wife enjoyed her sandwich which was cooked perfectly for her (medium rare.) The sweet potato fries that came with the sandwiches were spot on as well. A lot of places serve a greasy mess when you order these. Not here, these were perfectly crispy.

Overall this meal far exceeded my expectations. The prices were decent, the room was clean and the staff was extemely friendly and helpful. We will be going back for sure.

We ate at Molly Malone's last night and it was not good at all. First of all, they only offer 5 entrees now. They took the bangers, Guiness stew and salmon off and didn't replace them. The only Irish entree is corned beef and cabbage, which many people cannot tolerate. We started with buffalo wings which arrived dark, dark brown and a cool center, which means the oil in the deep fryer needed to be changed. In this case, the oil needed to be changed last month. The taste of the wings were terrible and the "bad oil" taste stayed with me for a few hours after only eating a few bites.
I don't consider a pot pie Irish food and I know it's very easy prep for a kitchen when prepared the way MM's did. Ladle some very thick, tasteless chicken soup in a bowl and top it with PRE-BAKED puff pastry!! After the wing episode, I played it safe and ordered a corned beef sandwich. You get a choice of sides and I ordered the cole slaw as it was the only side offered that was not fried. The slaw was creamy style, but was very dry with way too much onion. The sandwich was poorly cut resulting in half of the sandwich having very little meat on it. The other half had some, not alot.
I appreciate they don't "marry" their condiments, but at least clean the bottles. Really gross when old food is stuck to them.
Ten years ago this place was great. What a shame.

Wow, that's dissapointing to hear. I wonder why they'd suddenly scale back their menu like that. I think we still have another groupon to use there. Hopefully we can still get something decent there.

I will add that I did try the Guiness stew on a visit following that review I posted. It was almost all potatoes. Like, way too many potatoes and not enough other ingredients.

People still eat at molly Malone's?? That place has been going downhill for quite a while.

Kind of sad, it used to be great; we had our rehearsal dinner there.