Maybe Thai restaurants have become so common in your neighborhood that picking up pad Thai for dinner is about as exciting as retrieving your dry cleaning. How refreshing then, to find an inexpensive new restaurant that’s good enough to drive out of the way for.
Not enough people are doing that for Thai Pastry, at least not yet. The brightly lit, tidy dining room, softly decorated with peach and white linens on the tables and blond wood chairs, has scarcely been one-quarter full on several recent visits, both during the week and on weekends.
Is it the name? The word “Pastry” right up front in the logo has led quite a few would-be diners to assume the business, open since May, is nothing but a bakery. And there is, at the entrance, a glass case displaying wrapped pastries and desserts for carryout. Yet most of the room is devoted to a restaurant that comfortably seats about 50 people.
Once settled at the table, the menu looks pretty standard, but the flavors are as fresh and bright as could be hoped for. The superior level of cooking here might remind some diners of the popular Always Thai restaurant on Irving Park Road, and there is a family connection between the two restaurants. But there is an even more vibrant style here, which should help as Thai Pastry competes for business with other Asian restaurants in the busy Argyle Street neighborhood.
Start by kicking the cold with an absolutely top-notch hot-and-sour shrimp soup, tom yom koong ($5.95 small; $7.95 large). The base of the soup, an excellent shellfish broth brimming with mushrooms and curled pink shrimp, is further seasoned with enough tang from lemon grass and chili heat to clear heads in a second. Other standouts include the kuchai, opaque steamed dumplings filled with chives ($3.95), their comforting blandness offset with chili dipping sauce; tod mun, a fried cake of minced fish served with cucumbers ($5.95); and chicken larb ($5.95), a cold salad of chopped chicken with a lively seasoning of chilies, herb and onion.
Fiery flavors are done well here, with enough undertones of sweet and sour to keep curries from mere fire-breathing sameness. Look for the curries to arrive bubbling in an earthenware pot perched on a stand, and to come stewed with, as in the red curry chicken ($6.95), the round, green, tomato-shaped eggplants that many Thai restaurants don’t bother to include in their produce shopping list. Yet another good choice is the ho moke ($6.95), a square of steamed catfish bathed in coconut milk curry. Although this dish has enough pepper to keep a few beads of sweat on your brow, the fish isn’t overwhelmed.
Finally, a word about the pad Thai. (Is it possible to review a Thai restaurant without trying this over-exposed noodle dish?) The version here is excellent, a fine tangle of noodles with chicken ($5.25) or shrimp ($6.75), peanuts and bean sprouts, all slipperiness, crunch, sweet and sour, served in a generous portion that would easily feed two.
The food will be out promptly, served by the very friendly wait staff. You will have to wait, however, for the arrival of Thai Pastry’s liquor license, so make do with coffee, tea and soft drinks ($1) or a long Thai iced coffee or tea ($1.50).
And if dessert is part of the plan, take a look at that pastry case up front. Plastic boxes feature familiar pieces of cake with frosting ($1.50) and cups of sweet, colored “Jell-O” (really agar-agar, a flavorless seaweed derivative, $2). But the real Thai triumph is the startlingly realistic miniature “fruits” made of sweetened bean paste ($4). These sweets show real care and artistry, a reminder of what to expect from the kitchen in this welcome addition to the Thai restaurant scene. ———-
Thai Pastry & Restaurant
(4 forks)
4925 N. Broadway
773-784-5399
Hours: 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sun.-Thurs., 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Fri.-Sat.
Credit cards: A, DC, M, V
Noise level: Conversation friendly
Ratings key:
4 forks: Don’t miss it
3 forks: One of the best
2 forks: Very good
1 fork: Good
Reviews are based on anonymous visits by Tribune staff members. The meals are paid for by the Tribune.
