Gumrai Thai (Arlington Heights) -- worth visiting?

I have not seen many threads on Gumrai Thai. Has anyone been to this Thai restaurant (in Arlington Heights)? Is this restaurant worth visiting?

Gumrai Thai
170 N Arlington Heights Rd
Arlington Hts, IL 60004
847-590-1000

shorty wrote:I have not seen many threads on Gumrai Thai. Has anyone been to this Thai restaurant (in Arlington Heights)? Is this restaurant worth visiting?

I have eaten there three or four times and the place has had very good food at a very inexpensive price. They have a lot of lunch specials available.

jlawrence01 wrote:

shorty wrote:I have not seen many threads on Gumrai Thai. Has anyone been to this Thai restaurant (in Arlington Heights)? Is this restaurant worth visiting?

I have eaten there three or four times and the place has had very good food at a very inexpensive price. They have a lot of lunch specials available.

I decided to try Mexico Uno (in Palatine) today. I'll try to go to Gumrai Thai some other time for their lunch special.

I've been there a few times and gotten carryout more often, and it's always been very good. I like it better than altThai, which I find a little pretentious (and expensive) and much better than Bangkok Cafe.

I wouldn't put Gumrai on a destination level, but I think it's the best cooking and value of Arlington Heights Thais.

Northwest suburban Thais

I've visited Gumrai on several occasions - good, solid Thai. Of the three Thai spots in Arlington Heights, Gumrai, IMO, is the best for takeout.

Does anyone have any specific dishes they feel are worth ordering from Gumrai Thai?

I needed a change of pace today and placed an order with them to pick-up for the Golden Cup appetizer and some panang curry with beef, and a Thai iced tea. The quantity of food for the price is good, but I'm not impressed at all with the quality. I can pretty much sum up everything I had with: serviceable, but bland, with nothing to differentiate it from any other generic Thai restaurant. The panang curry has an ever so tiny bit of heat to it, which is nice, but overall tastes just like a very standard rendition of a very standard curry. Quite a few pieces of the beef in the curry are actually too large/long to be eaten easily, posing some difficulty when the to-go utensils consist of just a plastic fork and spoon.

Now, the curries I've had from altThai weren't really any better (and I've always been disappointed by the low amount of beef/chicken/duck in the curries I've ordered there), but I have had some luck there with dishes like the spicy catfish. My wife also considers their Thai beef salad above average, and while you end up overpaying for what you're getting, the mango with sticky rice makes a nice dessert option on occasion.

ucjames wrote:Does anyone have any specific dishes they feel are worth ordering from Gumrai Thai?

I needed a change of pace today and placed an order with them to pick-up for the Golden Cup appetizer and some panang curry with beef, and a Thai iced tea. The quantity of food for the price is good, but I'm not impressed at all with the quality. I can pretty much sum up everything I had with: serviceable, but bland, with nothing to differentiate it from any other generic Thai restaurant. The panang curry has an ever so tiny bit of heat to it, which is nice, but overall tastes just like a very standard rendition of a very standard curry. Quite a few pieces of the beef in the curry are actually too large/long to be eaten easily, posing some difficulty when the to-go utensils consist of just a plastic fork and spoon.

Now, the curries I've had from altThai weren't really any better (and I've always been disappointed by the low amount of beef/chicken/duck in the curries I've ordered there), but I have had some luck there with dishes like the spicy catfish. My wife also considers their Thai beef salad above average, and while you end up overpaying for what you're getting, the mango with sticky rice makes a nice dessert option on occasion.

I thought that Pad Kee-Mao was pretty good. I think that it is essentially the same dish as Drunken Noodles (which is my favorite dish at Green Basil up in Vernon Hills).

I went to both Green Basil and Gumrai Thai in the past month. The soup which comes with lunch is a bland tasting soup with some bits of pork floating in it (at Green Basil). At Gumrai Thai, the soup which came with our lunch was Tom Yum.

At Green Basil, I had a curry dish which contained beef which was so tough and chewy that it was inedible. The portion size at Gumrai Thai are much larger than the portion size at Green Basil. I also think that Pad Kee-Mao at Gumrai Thai is better than the Drunken Noodle dish at Green Basil. These dishes have different names, but I believe that they are equivalent dishes.

ucjames wrote:Does anyone have any specific dishes they feel are worth ordering from Gumrai Thai?

I posted some photos from Gumrai, an appetizer sampler, seaweed salad and seafood curry. I enjoyed those dishes. I'm fond of their red curry dishes. I would not say that Gumrai is worth traveling a long distance for, but of the Arlington Heights Thais, they offer the best food and value.