Thai Spice - Rogers Park

Hello all,

My first post! I did a search for this particular restaurant I just learned about last week. Thai Spice in Rogers Park BYOB.

I had a chance to dine here on Sunday evening with my girlfriend and a Filipino friend of mine who has been to Thailand many times - and always complains about how there is a distinct lack of truly authentic Thai restaurants in the city.

Our previous favorite (and still a favorite) is Aroy Thai, which I've seen is discussed and praised in depth on this forum (I am a huge fan as well).

Anyway - on to our experience! We ordered the Papaya Salad (Spice Level 1; with most dishes you have to specify a "level" of spice, 1-5, upon ordering. 5 is the hottest), Tom Kar Kai soup, Padga Prow w/ Beef (Level 3), and Thai Spice Gaprow Kai w/ ground pork (Level 2).

First off - the prices are a tad higher than your typical Thai place, however as I understand it each dish is prepared literally from scratch - aka the meats are ground upon order, papaya chopped / shaved etc - so the food takes a little longer to arrive. The portions are also a bit larger than typical - the Soup was enough for probably a table of 6. Apparently half orders are available to Loyola students for half price (not sure if this extends to regular patrons).

On to the food! The papaya salad was great - crispy, fresh, and VERY spicy!! Not overbearing, but we definitely weren't expecting such a kick in the face from our "Level 1" appetizer.

The soup was also very tasty - fresh (you'll notice this as a theme here), plenty of mushrooms and chicken, and a seemingly proper proportion of all the traditional flavors in this soup.

The Padga Prow with beef was great - the flavors and freshness were notable, however the thing that set this particular dish apart for me was the quality of the beef - it was as tender as a fine piece of steak. I don't recall another time that I've had beef this good in a Thai dish locally. The dish had a lot of basil (a good thing in my opinion), which greatly enhanced the flavor.

The star of the night was the Gaprow Kai (the owner's favorite dish I'm told) - the pork was perfectly cooked; tender, juicy, and flavorful. There was some sort of roasted element to the flavor that I absolutely loved; I'm not sure how to describe it, however it sold me on it being the next dish I order when I dine next.

Note that this is now my Filipino friend's favorite Thai restaurant in the city - he said as far as authenticity goes, this is as close as he's gotten in Chicago.

The service was fine - not slow, not overly attentive, just fine (which is fine with me). I'll definitely be back.

My apologies if my descriptions of the fare aren't up to snuff on this forum - my culinary vocabulary still needs a little work. Hope you check out Thai Spice soon and post your thoughts!

Best regards,
-Dirk

Thai Spice
1320 W Devon Ave
Chicago, IL 60626
(773) 973-0504

Welcome to LTH, Dirk, and thanks for the report!

Dirk, I have to agree -- I used to live in West RP and would order delivery from here weekly. The interior seems very pleasant but I've never ordered in. The portions are massive and the noodles have exactly the right amount of 'oily'-ness, not too much, not too little. And my wife, who has xenophobic feelings toward ethnic cuisine, is always up for some. Thanks for the dish recommendations. I agree the prices are higher than usual, but the portion size we got via delivery was proportionally fair.

I'm so glad to see a thread on here about Thai Spice. I've been going for about 10 years and even though I'm pretty far away now, I still try to make it a point to stop by every couple months. It's without a doubt the best Thai place run by a German guy in the city. Tony's wife is Thai, though, and she does all the cooking.