Yes, No, Depends on the Question - Arun's

I'm gonna give away a good key bit from my forthcoming and now past due report on last week's Joliet-athon. It was how, but for Chowhound/LTH, could one sit down in a restaurant AFTER a big meal, and do this: order (for six) 2 steak sandwiches, extra garlic butterine, and a side of relishes. How many of us longed to do things like that for ages? As DougK famously noted, it took finding our tribe. Which gets me to Arun's.

It was my birthday dinner, and I could essentially pick any spot, from the most humble and favored skinny hot dog at Gene and Judes to Rick and Gale's grand tasting collections at Tru. I chose Arun's. And I choose Arun's not that much on my longing for its version of Royal Thai (or what ever they consider their food), but I choose Arun's as fodder. JustJoan, the baker, warned me against going. I told her I wanted to go. I wanted to go to because I felt that someone who likes to proclaim all sorts of things about Chicago dining should have some understanding of the full range. Moreover, as someone who has specifically proclaimed on Thai dining, I felt I wanted a meal at Arun's for balance (just as I seek one day to go to Monsoon or Vermillion for comparison). Arun's was a birthday present to myself, something to write about. What an expensive folly.

The questions about Arun's stand twofold: is it worth the price and is it the most spectacular Thai food in Chicago. As one of my favorite blogs would say, sadly, no! With no irony, I can say, that only one bite was good (one bite salad). They served up food both astoundingly pedestrian and astoundingly mediocre. Nothing sums up our meal like a plate of not very good pad Thai. The kitchen entirely composes the meal, and what you get seems a bit of a crapshoot. For instance, they did not provide us oyster pancakes or crabcakes that other tables received, but were, of course, privy to the pad Thai. They do ask about spice preference, and we said very hot. They said Thai hot, and we said yes. A few of the dishes got exceedingly hot, Zim hot, from very ample use of Thai chile peppers, but in these cases, the balance in the dishes was so off, that it just hurt the mouth. To pile on, their method of serving the entrees family style resulted in dishes being cold by the time we got to them. And, sadly no, we did not leave wowed by the desserts. I would say that I had a very nice bottle of Sancerre, tasting like the best grapefruit juice imaginable. It highly complemented the meal, but then again I could bring my own Sancerre, for a fraction of the price, to Spoon or Thai Avenue, and get a good meal along side.

Here's the play by play:

Unlike anything else in its pricepoint (that I know of), Arun's does not open with an amuse, a little freebie to impress. Right down to business here. Right down to business with an especially un-impressive first course, a skewer of tempura vegetables, all neatly cut in matching squares, on top of a salad with a Thai fish cake. Both my wife and I went for the tempura first, thinking eat fried hot. Instantly, the greasy batter, hardly light tempura, put us off. I can tell you that the vegetables included Japanese sweet potato but I stopped eating the tempura too soon to remember all the other vegetables. The fish cake was OK, no better or no worse than any fish cake around town, with the same gummy texture that comes from working the fish to death before frying. With the fish cake, Arun's blew its first chance to step above the genre. Could not you see a skilled chef taking the idea of Thai fish cake and lightening it up, mixing in chunks of fish and otherwise keeping the dish true but in a way better? Under the fish cake was a salad of very fine greens and a few bits of Asian long beans, but the kitchen made a dressing essentially from the bottled chile sauce associated with Thai grilled chicken. This was not the first time during the evening that a bottled sauce would serve as the main condiment.

Next, we had pike fish, grilled with a heavy hand of salt and pepper alongside a small serving of greens and bean sprouts, a few Thai chiles perking up the vegetables. In my many crusades of late, I seek more use of freshwater fish, so I should be happy here, but as the old joke goes, did you like it, no and the portions were small too. I thought that again too much grease marred, but the portion was too small to really appreciate the light flavor of the pike. They sauteed the baby-baby spinach well.

We followed with one bite, one bite salad. Here finally, Arun's justified if every, every so slightly, their higher price. The one bite salad, a mix of dried coconut, shrimp and stuff came on a real betel leaf unlike Spoon Thai's dish which comes on lettuce. The betel leaf numbs the mouth. It is cool to loose sensation in your mouth for about 60 seconds, but while the Condiment Queen had no quibble with this dish, I gotta say it missed some of the zing of Spoon's. Spoon uses bits of lime, and the lime peel included gives the dish a dose of bitterness that makes the dish so much more. Arun's was good.

I've already discussed the pad Thai.

After the pad Thai, we got another normal Thai dish, glass noodle salad. It got upscaled by a big shrimp, although we had just had a big shrimp on the pad Thai, so the gesture seemed meaningless. With this dish they really went to town with the chile peppers, but the dish lacked lime, sugar and fish sauce like most Thai salads. Therefore, the chiles just bombarded your tongue with no assistance. A really lousy dish.

Our final appetizer was a dumpling filled with more shrimp, a bit of chicken and a nut or two, like a piece of dim sum. I s'pose we were to be impressed by the tapioca pearl wrapper, but like I say, I've had better dim sum. Underneath the dumpling was a thin schmear of bottled chile sauce.

As I noted above, entrees come family style. Three plates looking very beautiful and a small bowl of rice. I believe these entrees were the exact same as what JeffB had when he reported about Arun's on Chowhound, which says something too, no?: red snapper with crisp seaweed and bottled sauce, chicken in a yellow curry, beef mussaman curry, and a lobster (and more) shrimp medley. The soft texture of the beef, advertised as tenderloin, but I believe flanken appealed and the quality of the lobster was high, but the dishes had just no substance. Like I said above, they were further marred by being cold after a while.

We got two desserts, the first mango with sticky rice, the second a small ball of coconut sorbet. Ms. VI believed that the mango/rice came with a sauce of melted lime sherbert. I just kept on commenting how it was so much less satisfying than the one I had a month or so ago at Thai Aree which benefited so much from the mysterious seeds.

The meal rather ends abruptly after those two small desserts. Anything else they ask, and then shoo you along. It is probably meaningless to say at this point that I was less than impressed with the service and the praised decor. Sure, they removed all the plates quickly and get you supplied always with fresh forks and knives, but the service also was a conveyor belt, just a bunch of younger kids (including someone I know from another Thai restaurant), rushing plates to and fro. There was little sense of being taken care of. There is a lot of pretty paintings, but the small side room where we found ourselves sitting felt like in the extra room where a few tables were unfolded when too many people showed up.

As we were leaving, I noticed a printed menu on the hostess's stand. I asked if we could have it. Well, we could not have that one we were told. It was for Charlie Trotter who was coming in with a few media friends, but they'd make us a copy. She also offered to e-mail me a copy which I accepted. But if I was mad about our nearly $300 meal (with wine) up until that point, well the idea of Trotter and the media soon swooning, well that just got me madder. And of course, I noticed, Charlie was not getting the pad Thai. Still, I'd rather take him to Spoon.

Arun's
4156 N. Kedzie Ave
Chicago, IL
(773) 539-1909

VI,

Magnificently withering review.

You pretty much reflect my feelings about Arun's; though I haven't been there for years, the hodgepodge flavors, inept balance of tastes, lack of "amplitude," and family- style troughs all sound familiar.

So, why is Trotter going there? He, of course, gets VIP treatment and I'd assume an entirely different menu, but why go to a resoundingly second-rate Thai place? Cause it's fancy? Or is a high-end Thai place just such an anomaly that people have to go just to see it?

I remember going around the topic of Arun with zim some years ago. I like Thai so much that I wouldn't mind spending much more for a transcendent Thai dining experience, but you ain't gonna find it at Arun's.

Hammond

David Hammond wrote:VI,

So, why is Trotter going there? He, of course, gets VIP treatment and I'd assume an entirely different menu, but why go to a resoundingly second-rate Thai place? Cause it's fancy? Or is a high-end Thai place just such an anomaly that people have to go just to see it?

Hammond

Great question!

Trotter's menu was not that different than mine, although as I noted, he was getting the oyster pancake not the pad Thai.

I've written before how I believe Arun's could really do upscale Thai. I find it very off-putting that Charlie Trotter could not make the same point.

The other thing about Arun's that is so galling, which I mention above, is how much it is a riff on neighborhood Thai food. As MikeG might say, Arun's is frozen on some 1982 version of Thai, pad thai, Massaman curry of beef, I almost expected some satay. The only thing they add to the picture is bits and pieces taken from upscale Asian fusion menus over the ages, the tempura, the Chinese like dumpling, the crabcake and sorbet. They can do so much more by digging deep into the Thompson book, trotting out some exquisite and pristine products and actually challenging the diner. I mean Spoon serves lucious ultra trendy pork belly, and Mario Batalli would feel quite comfortable serving Thai Homemade's grilled pork shoulder. It really is embarrasing.

Rob

must confess to be startled by VI's review. When I last visited Arun's (last May) I found the food excellent and the presentation stellar (Three stars). True, it was not as transcendant an experience as the first time that I dined there, but if I had an out-of-town guest who wanted a unique dining experience here, Arun's is/was where I would go. Much as I respect Spoon and Thai Arree and the late Erawan, my experiences leads me to rank Arun's highest.

I have heard recently that Chef Arun has been planning a new restaurant, and sometimes in that case quality does slip without the chef giving his full attention. Perhaps that is the problem.

As it happened I was asked to write a review of Arun's for a sociological journal (Contexts - soon to be published), co-authored with Jenny Korn. They let me choose the restaurant, and like VI - but with better results - I selected Arun's. The review is about 1500 words, but I attach it below - I hope that it is not too long. It is not quite what I would have written for this list, but given that after the meal described (Arun's had not be told ahead), we did interview Chef Arun, and Jenny (who is a Thai-American sociological graduate student) spent a night in the kitchen.

Arun's is more expensive than what we expect to pay for a Thai meal, but I have had so many mediocre $100+ meals, that I treasure the memory of that first Platonic meal at Arun's.

THE REVIEW

Ethnic identity takes many forms. Ethnic groups are often associated with particular occupations or with niches within a market. Breaking out of this niche can sometimes be an overwhelming task. Nowhere is this more true than in the restaurant business.
The cultural image of the French restaurant, Italian restaurant, Mexican restaurant, Chinese restaurant, and Thai restaurant presumes not only different cuisines, but also distinctly different types of organization. (Indeed, French restaurants are not typically considered 'ethnic' restaurants.) These restaurants are expected not only to taste different, but to look different and to have different places within a market economy. But what happens when a restaurant attempts to escape its 'traditional' location?
With the increasing ethnic diversity of the United States, a consequence of expanded immigration since the 1960s, ethnic restaurants have flowered. Most of these restaurants, established by members of new immigrant groups, were modest affairs, specializing in their native cuisine, but tailored for American tastes and markets (Lu and Fine 1995). Because these restaurants were under-capitalized, relying on extensive familial labor, and because Americans expected these cuisines to have a particular pricing profile, most ethnic restaurants (with French and some Italian and Japanese restaurant to the contrary) offered relatively inexpensive dining.
However, as Americans became more used to ethnic cuisine, and as these ethnic communities became more established, the first stirrings of ethnic haute cuisine could be observed. Elite Chinese restaurants - such as Shun Lee Palace in New York - are now matched by those specializing in upscale Indian cuisine (London's Chutney Mary) or gourmet Mexican (Chicago's Frontera Grill).

The Taste

One of the more notable attempts at the establishment of ethnic haute cuisine is Arun's, an upscale Thai restaurant located in an unprepossessing light industrial area on Chicago's north side. Chef/owner Arun Sampanthavivat has created in his namesake restaurant a claim that Thai dishes can be as inspired - and as expensive - as European cuisine. The label 'cuisine' is, of course, an honorific title that some restaurants aspire to and a label that some diners and critics are willing to gift. However, Arun's standard $85.00 tasting menu (a menu that can accommodate different food preferences, ideologies, and level of spicy heat) clearly aspires to treat dining as a serious endeavor. That it is a pre-fixe menu locates authority in the hands of the chef. The tasting menu contains six appetizers, four main courses, and two desserts - and in our experience ran nearly three hours in presentation. Of course, twelve dishes for under a hundred dollars might be seen as good value, even by storefront Thai standards.
It has been claimed - and our experience of Thai restaurants does not cause us to doubt - that Arun's is the finest Thai restaurant in the United States, and one of the few that attempts a Thai haute cuisine. One might see these dishes as a 'court cuisine,' as is sometimes said of French haute cuisine, except that the dishes, particularly the appetizers and desserts, owe more to contemporary culinary experimentation than to Thai regal traditions.
Arun's has been in operation for nearly two decades, and it must be admitted, given our experiences, that the excitement of the cuisine - and perhaps the preparation - has leveled off. Several years ago, the surprise of the taste and presentation came like a bolt from the blue - a recognition that 'exotic' tastes could produce a profound subtlety of expression. The range of tastes that composed a glorious gustatory symphony did not have to be those of the Parisian establishment. However, today, having returned to a restaurant whose cuisine is remembered as glorious, the food while still artfully presented no longer presents miraculous surprises. Even on the first visit and again here, the main courses, impressive and opulent for Thai restaurants, were recognizable version of the plates at the better Thai establishments. The best among these dishes was prawns and lobster tails in a ginger-based sauce - powerful and rich and silken - clearly superior but not in a different register than the best dishes elsewhere. Also delightful was a fried sea bass in chili-shallot sauce. As is true of so many of Arun's dishes, the presentation with a quiver of carrots and green beans, and fried beet curlicues with the fish nestled into a pastry ring, was sculptural and monumental. Absent the architecture, the fish was superb if reminiscent of other fine Thai chili bass.
It is at both ends of the meal that the tentacles of fusion could be discerned - tasted, but especially seen. Like much contemporary nouvelle cuisine, Arun's dishes are sapped by a sweetness - not cloying in Arun's capable hands - but still a fruity note that reappears in almost every dish. It used to be an avocado hidden on each plate, today it is more likely a mango. So too is there a common danger of assuming that more is better. No longer does the excess refer to portion size, but to the number of ingredients. Any dish with over a dozen recognizable foodstuffs should be suspect. Why is less, done divinely, not more? Thus, even in one bite surprises are likely to involve the compilation of an orgiastic panoply of tastes. The most profound appetizer was the first, a Platonic concoction of toasted coconut, dried shrimp, peanuts, green and red chilies in an elegant (and yet sweetish) fish sauce, wrapped in a betel leaf. This dish combined traditional Thai flavors with a prophetic concern for texture, smell, sight, and taste. It worked supremely well because of the linkage of the ingredients to the heart of Thai cuisine and to the sweet-hot nexus.
Desserts were a fitting close, relying upon the richness of Thai fruit. The mango with lemon grass sauce, papaya (of course!) and sweet sticky rice, cut into elegant, modernist triangles, borrowing techniques from the visual arts, surrounded by a raspberry coulis was all that could be asked from a conclusion. The slightly acid sweetness was cut by the mild, calming texture of Thai rice, as always a nice change from the individualist grains of the American southland. Here, desserts seem less the domain of a specialized 'pastry' chef, but an indigenous portion of the meal itself.

The Master
Arun Sampanthavivat was, like us, an academic, but one made good. He received a master's degree in political science at the University of Chicago, and was well on his way to a Ph.D., when, inspired, he decided to open a Thai restaurant. In an interview he granted us, he described himself as 'self-taught' - learning about culinary standards from a Chinese grandfather and cooking techniques from a Thai grandmother.
Throughout the interview, Arun emphasized the dual face of his project - an attempt to balance Thai and Western traditions in taste, preparation, service, even decor. This is a chef who admires the efficiency and business acumen of the West, referring to Weber's theory of organization, while holding tightly to the attention to detail of his Thai homeland. The meal is a journey beginning with the six appetizers with Western techniques (a 'sequential banquet') followed by four more traditional Thai dishes presented simultaneously (a 'family banquet'). Arun has thought hard about the virtues of Eastern and Western cuisine. There is a theory to the meal.
From the first weeks after its opening in 1985, the restaurant received high praise from both local newspapers, and the awards have been steady, such as a prestigious James Beard Award. The New York Times remarked that Arun's was the best Thai restaurant in the United States and perhaps the world. In 1996, Arun altered the restaurant to make all dinners 'Chef's designed menu' - a string of dishes selected by the chef, at a single price. This structure, Arun explained, allowed him to gain more control over the timing of the meal (permitting him to manage reservations), while reducing the costs of high-quality ingredients by avoiding waste. At times, Arun sounds like the most rational of MBAs in his assessment of profit and loss. Although diners can be accommodated in their food allergies and avoidances, and returning customers receive new dishes, the balance of power is tilted towards the kitchen. This change apparently produced considerable frustration among his regular diners, and many discontinued patronizing the establishment. It took two years before the number of customers had returned to the old levels. Arun's goal was to create a Thai restaurant that would compete with Chicago's high-end French and Japanese restaurants - creating a new market niche by establishing a restaurant that borrowed from several levels of cuisine, aiming at what Arun described as an 'upscale clientele.'
Perhaps it is only a former social science graduate student who would have ideas that would shatter the rules of market placement. However, the reality of the restaurant being 'out-of-place' makes it such a suitable subject for this assessment.

The Sum of All Tastes
Sociologists often take the stance that they should not judge, but should stand back as honest brokers. Critics do not have such luxury. We place ourselves on the table, ready to be flayed. Arun's in our account - and we selected it for this reason - is an exceptional restaurant. We knew this going in. However, it is faced with challenges of all temples of haute cuisine, maintaining the magic and freezing the charisma. Any one visiting Arun's for the first time will be astounded, yet astonishment is fragile. One of the dangers of a set menu, and one that depends upon efficiency and profit, is keeping that feeling of mighty surprise. Diners returning should insure that the staff knows, so that the family of kitchen wizards in the backstage can make the gustatory lights up front continue to burn and twinkle.

REFERENCES
Fine, Gary Alan. 1996. Kitchens: The Culture of Restaurant Work. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lu, Shun and Gary Alan Fine. 1995. "The Presentation of Ethnic Authenticity: Chinese Food as a Social Accomplishment." The Sociological Quarterly 36: 601-619.

I've been to Arun's once, a couple years ago on a trip that included dinners at Topolo, Trotter's, and Tru, and lunches at Frontera, Spiaggia, and Ritz-Carlton (brunch, actually). There were four of us that went to all of these dinners and most of the lunches. Of the four, for two of us, Arun's was our favorite meal of the trip.

There were problems. Explanations came from waitstaff which such thick accents most of us had a hard time following the descriptions of the dishes. The service wasn't as polished as a place like Tru or Trotter's, though they were clearly trying. A couple dishes were a bit off.

However, I still remember the massaman. Not only was the curry itself excellent, but it permeated the perfectly cooked meat that would have been welcomed at any top restaurant. Everyone at the table loved it. Several other dishes were very much enjoyed by all. I didn't have anything that I didn't like or that I thought was a failure. (This is in sharp contrast to Trotter's, eg, where of the two meals I've had there, there were things that I didn't like or that I thought failed. I thought Tru had several dishes that were failures. Same with Topolo/Frontera.)

None of these people were inexperienced Thai food eaters, nor inexperienced upscale eaters. I probably eat Thai food at least once a week, plus usually make it, using books like Thompson's, at least once a week.

I can say unequivocably that I enjoyed my meal at Arun's more than I enjoyed my meal at Spoon. Sure, there is a price difference. But there's also a service difference and an atmosphere difference. Arun's is also a beautiful restaurant inside, imo.

It seems that Arun's does need to rotate its dishes a bit, but this definitely isn't unheard of at high end restaurants. Inn at Little Washington is still my favorite meal of all time, but in reading back through reviews of it after I'd eaten there, I realized they've been serving the same stuff for over a decade. That might affect a return visit, especially for someone like me who likes variety, but as a special occasion restaurant, it probably makes sense for them. And I@LW is a ***** restaurant, whereas Arun's only rates *** from Mobil. I can't remember how much Arun's base price is. LW's was $115 the day I went there for 5 courses, plus mignardises and amuse.

I am so over Arun's, I can't tell you. During my last visit 6 months ago, I couldn't help but repeat this mantra, "I could be paying a fraction at Spoon Thai or Sticky Rice. . . ."

It's not the money, really. It's just that nothing wowed me. Nothing. And the atmosphere feels strangely cobbled together and . . . well . . . gaudy. It didn't help that the folks at the table next to us were dressed in t-shirts.

Having never been to Arun's I'm curious about the element of surprise. In the past several weeks I've eaten at Sticky Rice and T.A.C. Quick several times. At each place I've sampled foods that I've never had before - rattan, a porous green vegetable in the sour curry with catfish, pungent shrimp paste as a condiment for fried trout, salted crab with large black chunks of carapace and claw, noodles pink from broth with tomato paste, ya nang leaf, preserved eggs, etc - or preparations that I'd never seen or didn't associate with Thai food - raw shrimp pounded flat and studded with raw garlic in a lemony presentation reminiscent of ceviche, the perfectly crisped and brilliantly colored fried basil leaves. None of these things are as far out as they could be - no cubed beef blood, worms, or ants - but they are different enough to thrill me, give my cultural knowledge a boost, and add a cerebral element to the sensual/visceral dining experience. Without a doubt, they'd be "different" enough to place many people out of their comfort zones - the happy Ameri-Thai diners at T.A.C. Quick are a testament to that fact ... as were their repeated warnings to me that the shrimp paste was very smelly and "white people usually don't order it."

In comparison, I hear about Arun's doing curry or ginger sauces. Neither of these are really exotic to anyone. From French to Califonian cuisine, curry and ginger are part of a fairly common dining vocabulary. Not that exoticism is a necessity, but, is Arun's really an example of upscale Thai, rooted in "authenticity" (take it as you will), or is it upscale Ameri-Thai? Do the exotic greens and vegetables make an appearance? The various seafood based sauces and pastes? The type of fish that you might actually get in Thailand, like catfish or the myriad tiny fish eaten whole or mashed/pureed/fermented?

Curious.

rien

rien wrote:Having never been to Arun's I'm curious about the element of surprise. In the past several weeks I've eaten at Sticky Rice and T.A.C. Quick several times. At each place I've sampled foods that I've never had before - rattan, a porous green vegetable in the sour curry with catfish, pungent shrimp paste as a condiment for fried trout, salted crab with large black chunks of carapace and claw, noodles pink from broth with tomato paste, ya nang leaf, preserved eggs, etc - or preparations that I'd never seen or didn't associate with Thai food - raw shrimp pounded flat and studded with raw garlic in a lemony presentation reminiscent of ceviche, the perfectly crisped and brilliantly colored fried basil leaves. None of these things are as far out as they could be - no cubed beef blood, words, or ants - but they are different enough to thrill me, give my cultural knowledge a boost, and add a cerebral element to the sensual/visceral dining experience. Without a doubt, they'd be "different" enough to place many people out of their comfort zones - the happy Ameri-Thai diners at T.A.C. Quick are a testament to that fact ... as were their repeated warnings to me that the shrimp paste was very smelly and "white people usually don't order it."

In comparison, I hear about Arun's doing curry or ginger sauces. Neither of these are really exotic to anyone. From French to Califonian cuisine, curry and ginger are part of a fairly common dining vocabulary. Not that exoticism is a necessity, but, is Arun's really an example of upscale Thai, rooted in "authenticity" (take it as you will), or is it upscale Ameri-Thai? Do the exotic greens and vegetables make an appearance? The various seafood based sauces and pastes? The type of fish that you might actually get in Thailand, like catfish or the myriad tiny fish eaten whole or mashed/pureed/fermented?

Curious.

rien

Yes!!!


I have been percolating in my mind, a post I will do some time soon on what *my* $85 per person Thai dinner would look like. You've helped me in some ways, although right now my dinner still features a laab of confit duck with a duck leg-thigh grilled Thai style (over real charcoal).

Rob

Well, I was going to post my lukewarm review of Arun from last year, which Rob mentioned. However that review (which I wish I had because of other restaurants I discussed) is lost to the ether. Suffice to say that I was as underwhelmed as many have been.

Regarding Spoon, TAC, Sticky Rice, etc., I simply cannot fathom not thinking that these *kinds* of restaurants are among the great culinary gifts to the US of our age. When I have a cold beer with a platter of tangy sausages and grilled, preserved Thai mackerel with nam prik and blanched vegetables, for pocket change, I have to pinch myself. The food is so complex, flavorful and well-prepared, it seems like I'm getting away with something.

On the other hand, I feel that the potential for being "gringoed" by these places is still pretty high, even for semi-regulars ordering off the "secret" menu. I still perceive that I get better food from Spoon when I call for delivery, which is usually. This might be because I order stuff that few non-Thais probably order, and one of the owners usually mans the phones. Maybe they assume that there is some paisano in the household and they know the address well by now. Indeed, my Thai pronunciation usually registers with the listener much better over the phone than in person.

I haven't had enough experience at Sticky Rice, but my Thai hot food on-site did not match the heat of delivery.

By the way, I understand that Arun serving stinky grilled fish and dip would be somewhat akin to Trotter serving free-range Buffalo wings. I enjoy, almost exlusively, the incredibly robust and pungent "drinking foods" at Spoon and places like it, whether here or LA -- the only two places with such options, more or less. So, I wouldn't have ordered the curries or even the salad that Extra did. Aples to oranges. My problem, like Rob's, is that what Arun does serve is neither innovative nor qualitatively much different from traditional, Americanized "dinner food" not unlike, as I understand it, one might find in a tourist hotel in Bangkok. So maybe the comparison isn't Spoon but PS Bangkok, the venerable Clark Street place. I still don't see the appeal.

JeffB wrote:Well, I was going to post my lukewarm review of Arun from last year, which Rob mentioned. However that review (which I wish I had because of other restaurants I discussed) is lost to the ether. Suffice to say that I was as underwhelmed as many have been.

Or, not quite so lost.

Hope you don't mind if I take the liberty of quoting you directly on Arun's.

JeffB wrote:First, Arun's. You have probably read before that this is a beautiful, serene place, with gracious service, but that the expensive Thai food is perhaps not cost-justified when one considers it against the fantastic, dirt-cheap Thai places around town. Yes. That's about right. It is a lovely spot, and a recent face-lift has made the outside as pretty as the inside. The service was sincere and warm, as maybe only Thai service can be. The wine list is inspired, what, with all the Germans and Alsatians, white Burgundies and Rhones that go great with the food. We had a nice white Chateneuf du Pape that worked wonders with the legitimately "Thai hot," in the server's words, plates.

I give Arun the utmost credit for actually making the dishes among the hottest I've been served anywhere, let alone at a $300 prix fixe dinner. But what were these hot dishes? Nothing too daring, even by Chicago Thai standards: tom yum, shui mai, beef massaman curry, chicken ka prao, et al. No fusion, not that I wanted any, so no foie gras or truffles to explain the prices -- only a smallish, and to be honest, overcooked split lobster tail and modest amounts of sea bass, shrimp and pike to fill out the $85 pp. menu. The menu, by the way, consisted of 6 small plates of appetizers, followed by four "family style" main dishes with rice, then a couple of small desserts. For a Chicago tasting menu, this was quite a light meal, but certainly enough food.

Don't blame me for the safe choices, as the one and only menu is set at the beginning of the night. No substitutions except for those made to accommodate dietary restrictions. So, no wild boar, venison, blood soup or ant eggs here.

In the end, I was impressed by Arun's in many ways, but kept wondering what the guys at Spoon would come up with given a couple hundred dollars and some lead time. I choose to see the experience as proof that Chicago has a very high standard for mom-and-pop Thai restaurants; that is, if Arun's really is among the best, often cited as *the* best, Thais in the US, then we should really appreciate the Spoons and Oparts, Rosed's and others, because the cooking is right up there.

Cheers,

Aaron

(Ctrl + F, by the way, rather than the search engine.)

I note ironically that right next to the Reader article about us is (instead of our picks) a list of the highest-rated Asian places... beginning with Arun's, which gets three backwards Rs from Reader readers.

I didn't want to start a new thread...

I live around the corner from Arun's, and since the day I returned from vacation (New Year's Eve), Arun's has been completely closed. No sign on the door, just closed up like a regular day off. Anyone heard anything? Have the stories of its decline finally finished it off?

It seems like January is the time of year that a lot of Asian restaurants close up and rumors aboundas to whether or not they will be reopening. I'd say, wait until February before jumping to any conclusions. (Although in Arun's case, it would be no great loss AFAIC.)

Vital Information wrote:I believe these entrees were the exact same as what JeffB had when he reported about Arun's on Chowhound, which says something too, no?: red snapper with crisp seaweed and bottled sauce, chicken in a yellow curry, beef mussaman curry, and a lobster (and more) shrimp medley.

That's funny.

Through an odd series of events two years ago I ended up at Arun's twice in a period of four months. The first meal was good but not warranting the price and the second was much more banal. What was interesting though was that the entrees were the exact same, and funnily enough, the same as those mentioned in Vital's post above. (three of them at least)

I would assume that a prix fixe menu of that price would vary from time to time, especially in the main courses. It speaks to both a lack of passion and utter complacency that it doesn't.

Ralph Wiggum wrote:
I would assume that a prix fixe menu of that price would vary from time to time, especially in the main courses. It speaks to both a lack of passion and utter complacency that it doesn't.

And that's one of the things that is so frustrating about the food media in this town, how they cannot recognize that lack of passion and utter complacency.

I spoke too soon. Arun's was open last night.

Vital Information wrote:And that's one of the things that is so frustrating about the food media in this town, how they cannot recognize that lack of passion and utter complacency.

I’m not trying to defend Chicago restaurant critics in general or Phil Vettel in particular but to be fair it should be pointed out that Vettel took a few jabs at Arun’s in his Tribune review of 15 June 2005:

“In Chicago's dynamic and competitive dining scene, a restaurant can fall behind simply by standing still. That, I fear, is what is happening to Arun's.

But based on recent visits, service has slipped, and the kitchen's ‘wow’ factor--that I-can't-believe-what-I'm-eating rush of excitement--has waned.

I've also noticed a tendency for the kitchen to fall into a comfort zone that most top-flight restaurants strive to avoid. One of my 12-course tastings seemed to rely a bit too heavily on shrimp; another included pad Thai and satay, the ubiquitous yawners of Thai dining.”

Still, he managed to award Arun’s 3 stars (reduced from 4). For some reason the Tribune’s metromix.com website only has the four-star review from over a decade ago.

For some reason I began thinking about Arun's today and realized I hadn't seen it discussed on lthforum for a while. Then I came upon this thread.

The most recent Phil Vettel review from June 2005 is now on-line.

As Rene G said, he is not kind in that review. There are complements, but there are also many complaints, many of which echo exactly what has been said in this thread. Perhaps Vettel was more impressed with the food itself than many of the posters, though.

I went there once, perhaps two years ago. I enjoyed it, but certainly felt that it was overpriced at $85. Having said that, I don't think you could eat at a four star restaurant for $85. ....Arun's is "officially" a three star restaurant and the prices seem in line. Perhaps it is still overpriced, though.

Anyways, the theme of the earlier posts is that Arun's is simply not worth it. Anyone been recently and disagree? Arun's was once a treasure of the local dining scene.

I have not been to Arun's. However, in a town with a seemingly endless choice of Thai restaurants (many of them great), I think it would be difficult for me to justify the price tag.
Someone please enlighten me.

johnny wrote:I have not been to Arun's. However, in a town with a seemingly endless choice of Thai restaurants (many of them great), I think it would be difficult for me to justify the price tag.
Someone please enlighten me.

"Justification" is relative. For someone who have not been there before, I would recommend trying it at least once so you have a foundation. I enjoyed my meal very much last fall when I went. The novelty of fine-dinning Thai got me through the door, the decor, the service and presentation of the meal wowed me after I got through the door, and justified the price tag, for me. Quality of courses themselves ranged from average to fantastic. Could I have found similar type/quality of food elsewhere in the city? Probably. Could I have found a combination of all of the elements above in one sitting in the city, doubt it and have not.

When it comes to "dinning experience" as this was for me, I prefer to try it myself than reading a message board, non pun intended for all previous posters.

Darren72 wrote:The most recent Phil Vettel review from June 2005 is now on-line.

Here's a relatively recent, 4.4.06, Arun's review by Mike Sula of the Reader.

Darren72 wrote:Anyways, the theme of the earlier posts is that Arun's is simply not worth it. Anyone been recently and disagree? Arun's was once a treasure of the local dining scene.

I ate with Mike that evening, which is how I know the date, and believe my comment on dinner was something to the effect...If Aruns were 1/3 the price it would be the best Thai restaurant in Cleveland.

Enjoy,
Gary

We have only been to Arun's once - back when it had only been open a year. All I remember of that meal was the absolutely wonderful appetizer - an exotic crispy papadum-like thing studded with coconut and shrimp and a myriad of other tastes - and the awful, gloppy noodle dish (probably Pad Thai) for which we were charged $18.00. The appetizer haunts me - the noodle dish has kept us from ever going back.

Thanks for the link and update Gary. Too bad. I was hoping Arun's would make a come back, but it appears not.